


Drunk in Wench Land

by WackyGoofball



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Banter, Comedy, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Kissing, Drunkenness, F/M, Fighting, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, In a way, Romance, Romantic Comedy, and Brienne isn't having any of it, and he thinks he is so clever, and witty, drunk!Jaime, he is so much fun, with some feels in-between
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-04-05 17:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14048937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WackyGoofball/pseuds/WackyGoofball
Summary: Brienne prepares for another quiet weekend by herself when suddenly, her peace is interrupted when someone rings her doorbell, someone she did not at all expect because they never met outside the office.And that man is clearly drunk and, as always, out for trouble.





	1. In Wench Land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chlax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlax/gifts).



> Hello everyone, thanks for looking into this story. I hope you are going to enjoy this little (if rather long), goofy fic. I just have to get this out of my head because it keeps glaring at me from the depths of my word documents. 
> 
> Anyway, the warnings go as always, I own nothing, even less so my mind, still no beta, still no native, as per usual. 
> 
> I gift this to chlax who thankfully revealed herself to me as a mutual I know from other social media! I hope you'll like this one, darling. 
> 
> I hope you will have fun reading this - because I had fun writing some drunk!Jaime. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

 

Brienne of Tarth finds great reassurance in what may seem like the simple things in life. Foremost, it’s the simplicity and order of things that have an almost soothing effect on her mind, especially in a world as hazy and fast-moving as King’s Landing proves to be.

It’s not that Brienne dreads hard labor, of which she gets well enough at the office. In fact, she enjoys the daily challenges, because it gives her the feeling that she can prove all those people of her past wrong who are long since faded memories and echoes, telling her that she was just an ugly girl, good for nothing.

However, by the end of the day, Brienne is glad to finally get home, listen to the familiar crunching and clicking of the lock as it opens with the turn of her key. The tall woman relishes the creaking of the old wooden floor and the fact that she doesn’t even have to switch on the lights to find her way around, because Brienne knows exactly where everything is set.

Sipping orange juice from her glass, Brienne lets out a relieved, content sigh. She always feels somewhat renewed after a bit of workout and the subsequent shower. Lately, Brienne didn’t find the time to go to the gym as often as she would like to, but hopefully, she will have more time for that after the big project is over and dealt with.

Perhaps the weekend will leave her with at least one evening to go about her usual routines. Because work definitely is enough of a disturbance to her routines. Or rather, there is one particular person who seems far too overjoyed to ensure she cannot keep to schedule, can keep to plan.

Because Jaime Lannister apparently has no better to do around the office.

At some point Brienne still tends to ask herself just how and why she ended up working together with him on so many projects as of late. Supposedly, the son of the CEO of the company just enjoys himself far too much humiliating and teasing her, which is likely the reason why they somehow get teamed-up, no matter her complaints.

_Or he just wants to drive me out of my mind. Who knows?_

Brienne runs her fingers through her still damp hair as she sits down on her couch and leans back against the backrest, looking around her otherwise empty apartment.

 _I really have to stop thinking about this,_ she reminds herself _. Or else I won’t ever have my well-deserved bit of peace within the comfort of my own home._

The sound of the doorbell pulls Brienne out of her thoughts, back to her dimly lit apartment. Startled, she gets up to make towards the door.

The young woman presses the button for the intercom, still pondering who would come by her apartment at that hour, _or in general, to be more precise_. Brienne never really made friends ever since relocating to King’s Landing. She was too busy with work and she learned from an early age on to be weary of almost anyone not her family.

Brienne doesn’t trust most people, simple as that.

Needless to mention that she does not consider herself the most sociable person in general, so it seems little surprising that Brienne spends most of her free time in the comfort of her home – alone.

“EEEELLLLLLOOOOOO LEMMMMMMMMEEEEEE INNNNNNNN!”

Brienne makes a face. Who _by the Seven_ would be yelling at her over the intercom to be let inside her apartment at that time of the day? Who even knows that she lives there? And who knows that she lives here – and is apparently an intoxicated man?

“Who is this?” Brienne demands to know, her mind already racing through the options of who might be calling her up via the intercom. It can’t be one of her neighbors, can it?

“OPENNNN UP! I WANNA GO HOMMMMMMME,” is the loud answer she receives.

“Who am I talking to?” she repeats, keeping her voice leveled.

“MEEEEEEEEEEE.”

“You clearly must be ringing the wrong door, sir, I am afraid, I will just…,” Brienne says, already meaning to walk away, but that is when the man starts shouting on the other end of the line.

“WENNNNNCH!” the man moans, though then adds loudly without drawing out the words as much, “OPEN UP ALREADY! IT’S COOOOOOLD OUTSIDE!”

Brienne’s eyes widen at that.

What is Jaime Lannister doing by her apartment, at that hour, and intoxicated?

_What the Seven Hells is going on here?!_

“Lannister?” Brienne gapes, her mind already running circles to make sense of any of this, though with little success at this point.

“Jaime, just Jaime. You know it’s just Jaime. I told you it’s Jaime, just Jaime. Jaime…,” he mutters, pressing his mouth way too close to the intercom. “Jaiiiiiiimmmmmmmeeeeee.”

“What are you doing here?” Brienne asks, pondering for a moment if she really wants to know what her colleague slash source of irritation is doing around the area at that time.

“Going hooooome?” he suggests, now almost sounding like a small child, and while she knows him to act like one more often than not, Brienne knows for a fact that he is not a small child by any means.

“You are at my apartment, so you are clearly _not_ going home,” Brienne points out to him soberly.

“WENNNNNCH, just open up alreadyyyyyyyyy,” she can hear him groan, which is then followed by a clink, then another, and another.

Brienne narrows her eyes. “Are you seriously knocking your head against the intercom right now?”

“There’s swords in my braaaaaaaaain, wench, and it’s… what’s the adjective for sword? Is there an adjective for sword? Swordy? Do you have a dictionary upstairs? I could check… but only if you let me inside to look at your dictionaryyyyyyyy…,” Jaime mumbles, repeating the motion of knocking his head against the intercom.

“That’s what you get when you drink yourself stupid: Swords in the brain,” Brienne snarls, far too much reminded of the many times she ended up lecturing this man over general inappropriate behavior, which he displays with almost childish glee whenever around her in particular at the office. However, Brienne then gathers herself again, making herself aware that if she wants to get him to leave, she shouldn’t encourage discussion with this drunken man. “

“In any case, you should use your time to call a cab to take you home,” she tells him instead, making sure to keep her voice as calm as she can, even though Brienne finds her left fist already clenching and unclenching.

“I… I lost my phone,” Jaime says in a sing-song, stressing the end of each phrase. “So I went home.”

“Are you rhyming right now?” Brienne asks, making a face.            

“I am a poet, a drunk poet but a poet… being all poetically poetic in his poetry,” Jaime tells her. “I can still recite that poem about the Doom of Valyria. Had to learn it when I was still a kid. Hated it! Hated it… _They held each other close, And turned their backs upon the end, The hills that split…_ in thunder?”

“ _Asunder_ ,” Brienne corrects him, wondering for a moment why she even bothers right now, but then again, she had to learn that poem by heart as well when she was still younger – because her father, to this very day, takes some strange kind of pride in that they have old Targaryen ancestral ties in their family tree.

Though Brienne couldn’t care less about that, to tell the truth.

“That. _And the black ate the skies_ , however _that_ worked…,” Jaime goes on. “Can colors eat? Is black a hungry color, do you know? And what about Lannister red? Is it hungry, toooooo?”

“I think it’s a drunk color right now, but never mind. Can we just agree that we should be glad you did not pursue a career as a poet – and leave the discussion about colors for another day?” Brienne exhales wearily.

Though that day is definitely named “never.”

“Mayyyyyyybe. I look good in business suits anyway, so that’s what I should be doing, considering. The ladies be checkin’ me out coz they like what they see, mhmmmmm.”

“I bet they are,” Brienne answers drily. “But anyway, how did you lose your phone?”

“I mislaid it?”

“Where?” she asks, growing more and more impatient with every second passing. If that should teach Brienne much of anything, then it is that she might be off best staying on her own, if having people come over to her apartment results in Jaime Lannister drooling on the intercom.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t have lost it,” he retorts. “Wench, you have to pay ATTENNNNNNNTION. The details are IMMMMMMMPORTANTTTTT.”

“Would you stop yelling over the intercom? My neighbors will wake up otherwise,” Brienne tells him.

“What do I care?” Jaime scoffs. “I am Jaime fuckin’ Lannister. Son of Tywin… of the same fuckin’ last name.”

“ _I_ care, that’s why _you_ should care,” Brienne replies drily. “And now, be on your way. Your home is elsewhere.”

“Let me INNNNNNNSIDE,” he mewls.

“What? No!”

“Doesn’t… doesn’t guest right mean anything to you, wench? I am shocked. SHOCKED I am telling ye. Sooooooo shocked. Honorable Brienne of… that Blue Isle. Blue waters, no blue gemstones. Common misconception… I was told… by someone,” Jaime mumbles, yet again, way too close to the intercom.

“ _I_ told you that,” Brienne sighs.

_About one hundred times._

“Right. So? What of honor, wench, hmmmmmm?” he asks. “Wench’s honor’s honor, too, if you want it to be? Hmmmmmmmmmmm?”

“ _Fine_. You know what? I will call a cab right now. It should be here in a bit, and then you just go home, as in your actual home, and not my apartment’s intercom that you keep slapping your face against,” Brienne bargains, hoping sincerely that Jaime will finally give in and remain silent. This all takes far too long already, and she wouldn’t want anyone to wake up peek his or her head out to see her colleague slobbering on the intercom.

Brienne hates gossip, and she would rather not have anyone making assumptions.

Because that is the birth of common misconceptions.

And she has frankly had enough of those throughout her life already.

“And you’d just leave me standing here outside???” Jaime protests. “How cruel!”

“Why not?” Brienne huffs, unimpressed. “You walked here all on your own, too, didn’t you?”

“You are cold as ice, Brienne of… of that blue island that has no blue gemstones that gave it the name,” Jaime grumbles.

“ _Tarth_.”

“Yes. _That_ …,” he agrees, then waits for a few seconds before going on, “Where was I?”

“Insulting me?” Brienne suggests, trying her best to contain her anger.

“Oh, _right_. Our favorite game. Well, you are cold as ice. And your eyes are as blue as… something reeeeeeeally blue. Gah, I had the word a moment ago. Now it’s gone. Your eyes are…,” Jaime mutters, and Brienne is fairly certain that he leans his head against the intercom yet again. This time, she can even hear his hair rustling against the receiver.

“I will call the cab now, that’s as far as it gets, Lannister,” Brienne cuts him off.

“It’s Jaime, wench.”

“Don’t call me wench.”

“Then call me Jaime,” he retorts. “And let me inside. Preeeeeeetty please.”

“No.”

“Just until the cab arrives?” he bargains.

“Simply behave yourself like a normal human being for a change. How about that? Hm? It’s a mild evening. You won’t freeze to death, I am pretty sure,” Brienne argues.

“But the night is long and full of terrors?”

“Which is what I am currently going through,” Brienne mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Fine, if you don’t grant your own colleague shelter, I will have to ask one of your neighbors…,” Jaime then announces. Brienne can hear him moving away from the intercom slightly, likely to inspect the name tags really close because he supposedly can’t read them very well in his current state. “Hmmmmmmmm, who sounds nice? Alyn… _Cock_ shaw? Bwahahahaha. Cocks. Oh, I have to call that one and be all… cocky. The possibilities for jokes are sheer endlessssssss… Cock, cock, cock, who is there!?”

“You will not,” Brienne demands.

He can’t mean for this. And the Gods can’t mean for that either, can they? Just what did she to deserve all this? All Brienne wanted was a peaceful evening, and now _this_!

“Ben Bushy… I wonder where he has his bush, probably to hide some very hairy, ugly stones behind a short stick… though… nah, maybe not,” Jaime goes on, probably making a face of disgust right now, judging by his tone. “I think I’m gonna be sick now that I think about it… hairy bushes, noooooo.”

“That is entirely your fault,” Brienne points out to him drily.

“ _Dick_ on _Manwoody_ … if that guy doesn’t have morning wood every morning, I will be flat-out disappointed. Man, those last names are gems! I have to get to know all of’em… Kyle Condon, presumably in need of a _condom_ … maybe I can ask dear Kyle for help you won’t provide… Hmmm… how about this woman? She has a nice name. Maybe an older person… you can always call those up for a cup of sugar any damn time of the day or night, huh?” Jaime goes on, not at all caring for the anger pouring through the intercom from the other end of the line.

“You will stop that right now!” Brienne shouts.

“But maybe I will get some sugarrrrrrr!”

The blonde woman can’t believe herself when she presses the button to open the door downstairs, but she reckons she has an obligation to keep the peace in her neighborhood if she wants the neighbors to ever be friendly to her again. However, she doesn’t get to ponder those things much as she hears two footsteps, then a thud, followed by a groan.

“Did you just seriously fall through the door?” she sighs.

“You gave me no warning!” she can hear him moan.

“I thought the shrilling sound was warning enough.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Evidently,” Brienne grumbles as she grabs the keys from her dresser to head downstairs, hoping to keep the man somewhat at bay until he is inside her apartment. While Brienne would rather not have Jaime Lannister anywhere near her living place, she can’t have him in the hallway within eavesdrop of her neighbors either.

Coming down the staircase, Brienne is less than pleased to find Jaime lying on his back, tapping his fingers against his chest. To her surprise, he is still in his business clothes which she saw on him earlier at the office, though a little disheveled after some serious drinking and falling through the door, supposedly, which thankfully stayed intact, however.

“You seem even taller from this position. I thought that was impossible!” Jaime says, looking up to her with big eyes and a dumb kind of grin that Brienne feels any urge to punch out of his almost painfully handsome face.

“And you seem even smaller from this position, which I thought was impossible, too,” Brienne scoffs. “Now get up. I want to call the cab so that we can get over with this as quickly as we can.”

“But I wanted sugarrrrrrr from this Missus…,” he argues, waving his arm around lazily, almost knocking against her leg in the process.

“Shut it now and get up, for Gods’ sake,” Brienne hisses.

“You’re always so bossy. And that even though you are not my boss.”

“Judging by your reaction, it’d seem to me that bossing around is something you very well need to get yourself together,” Brienne huffs, one hand on either side of her thick hip. “Now get up before the entire neighborhood learns about Jaime Lannister lying on the floor in an apartment complex on Rosby Road.”

 _And he deserves being bossed around all the same_ , Brienne adds to herself.

“Oh, that would make a nice headline!” he croons, seemingly pleased with that idea now for some _godforsaken_ reason.

“It better not or else the sub-headline will concern your murder in just that apartment complex,” Brienne warns him.

“But then you have to get rid of the body, too, wench, thiiiiiiink about it. Quite an effort for the little Kingslayer you care soooooooo little about that you wouldn’t even let him into your apartment at first,” he points out to her, finding all of that much funnier than it actually is.

 _Kingslayer_. She wondered about that nickname when she first heard it, because Jaime used it himself the first time they met, which she found a queer thing. Brienne knew that it related to Jaime’s involvement in taking down Aerys Targaryen’s business, which resulted in his suicide, for which some people blamed Jaime then in turn, having given the madman one last push. It wasn’t until later in their work together, over takeaway at the office late at night, that he explained to her that he rather used the name himself – as a kind of shield. If he uses the name himself, the others can’t make a sword out of it, following his brother’s advices on the matter.

“Now get up,” Brienne orders.

“You could also give me a hand, y’know?” he grumbles, now reminding her of a beetle you turned upside down, which looks almost surreal to Brienne. Jaime normally has a way of moving that she can only ever call elegant, except for when he wants to be funny and tries to make her laugh with his stupid, inappropriate behavior. However, looking at him now, he looks like any other drunkard.

“Ugh,” Brienne grunts, before extending her hand to the man. Jaime eyes her palm with a frown for a few seconds before tapping his fingers against it, as though he was now drumming on it.

“Are you anywhere near done yet?” Brienne grumbles.

“I was just trying to make sure that I was not hallucinating this in my drunken stupor. Brienne of Tarth giving me a hand…,” he sighs, before taking it. Brienne pulls her colleague up quickly, willfully ignoring his moans as Jaime almost topples over to the other side once he is back on his feet.

Brienne withdraws her hand as quickly as she can. Jaime leans against the side of the door, the side of his cheek pressed tightly against the glass.

“Oh, this feels sooooooo good,” Jaime moans happily. “It makes the swords go away.”

“If you like the glass that much, you might just as well stay here and wait for a cab in all silence,” Brienne suggests, but Jaime instantly withdraws from the glass upon hearing that, looking at her with wide if dazed eyes, stumbling once, twice, before arguing, “Nah, I was invited into the _Secret Lands of the Wench_. I won’t back down now that I finallyyyyyyy got access!”

“Do _not_ call me wench,” Brienne exhales, well aware that this is a lost cause anyway. Jaime loves that nickname way too much to let it go. Though, of that Brienne is certain, he just wants to cross her with it, even in his drunken stupor.

“It’s your nickname… pet name. Term of endear… _something_.”

“It’s an insult,” Brienne corrects him, crossing her muscular arms over her flat chest. “A medieval one.”

“But it’s cute when I say it,” Jaime argues. “Precisely because it’s medieval. They had all cute kinds of things. Like… ugh.”

“Greyscale, slavery, the War of the Five Kings, dragons…,” Brienne recounts.

“While I don’t like dragons for real, they always looked cute on my children’s books. With smiley faces and all… So there is that. But aaaaaaanyway, that’s why your pet name is wench – and it is cute because I am cute when I say it.”

“It’s _not_ when you do so in a business meeting, with your friggin’ father and the shareholders present,” Brienne hisses, still remembering that incident quite vividly.

She can still feel heat rising to her cheeks merely thinking about what it was like sitting in that meeting where Jaime and she had to give a presentation together, only for him to announce that Brienne would now explain the sales figures while handing her the remote with the words, “there you go, wench.”

The room was so silent you could hear a needle drop – and then his little brother cracked up laughing while Brienne had to suppress any urge not to throw the remote right at Jaime’s head.

Brienne didn’t talk to him for about a week, no matter Jaime’s efforts, purposely walking up and down the outside of her office, occasionally holding up a sticky note reading “still mad?” to which she only ever tossed a paper ball at him in turn.

And Brienne can pride herself of that one thing – she has one hell of an aim.

“That was a slip of the tongue. Tongues are tricky like that…,” Jaime insists as they climb the stairs leading up to her apartment. “I told youuuuuu. I forgot it and then… well, out the word went into the world. At least my brother had his dear fun!”

“Which proves my point that you should stop calling me that altogether to prevent _just_ that from happening,” Brienne replies, her eyes constantly wandering around the staircase, hoping sincerely for no one to come to the door to see what she is discussing with who is a stranger man to her neighbors.

“Where would be the fun in _that_?” Jaime scoffs, dragging his legs up slowly.

“Well, you are apparently the only fun having fun in that, so you tell me… or rather, don’t,” Brienne says. “Because honestly, I don’t care.”

“Oh yes, _The Wench Land_ , I almost forgot… but _just_ almost, this is a night to celebrate, after alllllllll, because I will finally figure out these stranger lands mysteries,” Jaime says,

“Just as a fair warning, if you fall on your nose, be sure I won’t prevent that from happening. So better watch your step,” Brienne tells Jaime as she watches him swing back and forth more and more.

“And here we are again,” Jaime sighs as he almost heaves himself up the stairs. “You are never kind to me, ever noticed that?”

“I do let you into my apartment against better judgment right now, so I think I am more charitable than you give me credit for it,” Brienne huffs.

And that actually runs contrary to what he said not too long ago when she took over some of the reading, knowing that he takes longer with that because he is not the best reader. Because that is good tone and comradeship, and Brienne gives something on that, so no, she won’t let that stand.

“Point taken,” he agrees promptly.

Brienne only ever keeps an eye on him over her shoulder, all the while hoping that Jaime will keep quiet until they are inside her apartment, praying to the Seven for that last bit of mercy, but that mercy seems rather short-lived when he starts whistling for some reason.

“Stop that!” she curses.

“Stop what?”

“Whistling?”

“I was whistling? Ohhhhhhh. I was just taking in the view. Must have gotten me distracted,” Jaime says, puckering his lips, seemingly lost in thought.

“What… _view_?” Brienne questions, making a face, stopping for a moment on the stairs to look at him in utter irritation.

“I mean, it’s quite a treat. Brienne of Tarth in short shorts and all. I never thought I’d see that in a lifetime,” he says with a smug kind of grin on the verge of being nothing but full of dirt.

Brienne looks down herself. While she is aware that Jaime only knows her in business wear, she didn’t even think about it that she now stepped in front of her colleague, son of the boss no less, in a white tank-top that is still damp to the touch after the shower and maybe even see-through in some place, and in _really_ rather short if comfortable shorts, coupled with house shoes.

_But why would he refer to **that** as a **treat**?! That man must be even more drunk than I first anticipated. _

“You shut your mouth!” Brienne snarls, instantly starting to walk again, and ever the faster.

_Enough is enough._

“What did I do?” he pouts.

“You keep talking,” Brienne hisses.

“I was making a compliment?” he argues, frowning. “Because of the preview for Wench Land.”

“It isn’t a compliment, even less so in this very situation,” Brienne retorts angrily. “Now shut up and keep walking a bit faster. It’s actually not that many stairs, but thanks to you we are taking forever.”

“This is more difficult than you make it out to be. The stairs keep moooooooving,” Jaime laments.

“They are not.”

“They are for me.”

“Because you are drunk.”

“You are such a sharp knife when it comes to figuring out those details, wench,” Jaime chuckles.

“Don’t call me that,” she sighs.

“Wenchy.”

“Seven Hells no.”

“So wench it is! I won. I am soooooo good at this. Yay me,” Jaime calls out cheerfully. Brienne can see over her shoulder that he gives himself high-five, though he fails and just crosses his arms in that motion.

At last, they reach the hallway on which her apartment is. Brienne walks on as fast and quietly as possible until her door comes into sight, and she never thought she would be so glad to see her apartment. Brienne turns the key in the lock swiftly, only to push Jaime inside as he is about to say something, pointing at her nametag.

He is still gathering himself after she pushed him inside. “That was toooootally unnecessary.”

Brienne tosses the keys into the bowl sitting on top of the dresser. “C’mon, we have to get you a cab and hence out of here.”

Jaime doesn’t seem to care too much about what she suggests, however, instead is far more focused on looking around, twirling on the back of the heel not nearly as gracefully as he likely thinks he does, almost falling over in the motion.

The younger woman lets out a sigh as she walks over to the kitchen counter where she left the phone earlier that evening after checking for missed calls or messages, and, as nearly always, finding none.

She doesn’t have friends around here calling her up, after all.

_What did I expect?_

“Wench Land!” Jaime says with a dumb if strangely satisfied kind of grin.

“Stop calling my apartment that,” Brienne exhales, already searching for a cab company.

“But it’s the realm where the wench resides! Thus Wench Land! Loooooooks… different from what I expected, though,” Jaime comments, wrinkling his nose as he keeps eyeing this surrounding with a mixture of curiosity and what Brienne assumes to be irritation.

“You had _expectations_ regarding the interior of my apartment?” she asks with a frown, but then shakes her head. “I don’t have time for that. Just sit down on the couch. Don’t break anything. I will get a hold of a cab for you now… Leave that alone!”

Brienne narrows her eyes at Jaime as he starts toying around with whatever is within his reach on her couch table, coming threateningly close to pushing half of the items to the floor in the process of inspection, the glass of orange juice she left there included.

“I thought you have a phone call to make,” he chimes, believing himself to be far smarter than he is right at this moment.

“You will repay me for that,” Brienne mutters under her breath.

“A Lannister always pays…,” Jaime means to say, but Brienne cuts him off rather harshly, “Just shut up.”

“As m’lady commands.”

“I am no lady.”

And even less so his lady.

Brienne focuses her attention back on her phone and at last spots a cab company that sounds promising enough.

“What is your address?” she asks, reckoning it might be better to have that information before making the call, or else he might find it funny to keep that information from her.

“I don’t know?” Jaime answers, tilting his head to the side with a grimace.

“You don’t know your own address but you know mine?” Brienne questions.

“I _found_ yours!”

“ _Where_?”

Jaime reaches into his chest pocket to retrieve what she can identify as her business card.

“Had that in my pocket, apparently. Sooooo I went home to you,” Jaime says, stuffing the card back to where it belongs, tapping his fingers against his chest three times before resuming his inspection of the items scattered on her table.

“But this is _not_ home. So I need your address – to your actual home. Or else I can’t call a cab,” Brienne argues.

“You don’t know mine? I am hurt,” he pouts.

“You _are_ aware that you yourself had me informed that due to some business in the past, the decision was made to keep information regarding your address classified?” Brienne points out to him.

She was irritated when Jaime told her that story one time when they had lunch in her office, working on the project where he branded her as “wench” around the office for all times. While Brienne had an awareness that being the son of Tywin Lannister came with a lot more prestige and media attention, she did not know just how far those things went, which made her think that maybe she is not entirely unfortunate, being the plain, ugly woman she is. Because she can walk down the streets any other day without anyone paying any mind to her. Jaime, however? There is not a day when people don’t turn their heads in his direction while he makes his way out of the office or down the street to a nearby café by the office. She has witnessed that plenty of times.

And truth be told, that is one of those things Brienne doesn’t envy him for. Quite on the contrary, that is what makes her feel the slightest pang of pity for him. Even though it is mostly fast forgotten as the next cutting, snarky comment by that man lurks just around the next corner.

“Oh, right, people showing up at my apartment because I am the picture boy of the company and all. Some wanted autographs… others wanted to punch me in the nose… because us Lannisters? We are evil. Soooooo evil. I liked the autographs people more… Yeah, that was no fun. I had to move. I liked the other one. It had nice carpets,” Jaime mumbles, looking around her apartment rather dazed.

“You could have kept the carpets?” Brienne frowns.

“But they look different in the apartment I now have,” Jaime laments, but then looks up. “I like yours!”

Jaime wants to walk up to the carpet behind the couch, but in the process is stopped by said piece of furniture, which results in Jaime promptly falling down on the sofa, seemingly no longer having any intention to get up again.

_This has to be some strange kind of nightmare._

“Do you have your brother’s phone number? Maybe he can help here?” Brienne asks, clutching at straws now.

Because she surely would like to bypass calling up her boss to inform him about his drunken son slouching on her couch. And Gods know what rumors would spread around the office if anyone were to know about this.

And Brienne doesn’t want to have that, can’t afford to have that. She already has to work under the “wench” stigma now, so this is the last thing she needs.

“It’s saved to my phone,” Jaime tells her, moving his fingers in front of his face, strangely fascinated by that for some reason.

“But you don’t know your brother’s phone number by heart?” Brienne makes a face.

“For what do I have a phone… well, _had_.”

“Exactly my point. Is there anyone we can call? A rough direction to go to? The street? I mean, there has to be _something_ ,” Brienne argues.

Because she can’t sit him in a taxi and tell the driver to let him cruise around town until Jaime, in his drunk mind, may remember where his own apartment is, can she.

 _Can_ she?

“Maybe my brother’s business number?” Jaime suggests, puckering his lips.

“Well, best shot we have,” Brienne sighs, typing in the numbers.

“You know _that_ by heart?” Jaime asks with a grimace, wrinkling his nose.

“In case I lose my phone?” the younger woman suggests.

“I will remember that… likely not,” Jaime says, sinking deeper down on the couch.

“I am rather sure you won’t remember any of what is going on right now once you have fallen asleep,” Brienne mutters.

“Maybe… very likely,” Jaime agrees.

The tall blonde shakes her head as she holds the phone to her ear, praying yet again that his brother will pick up and get her out of this hell, but then Brienne hears the crack she doesn’t want to hear, and then the message she wants to hear even less.

_“Hello. You have reached Tyrion Lannister. Unfortunately, I cannot answer my phone right now, but either one of my assistance or I will get in touch with you as soon as possible. You can leave a message after the beep.”_

Brienne lets out a heavy sigh before leaving a message in a politer manner than she would want to, granted how much she can feel her blood boiling right now. “Good evening, this is Brienne of Tarth. I would ask you to call me back as soon as you get this message. Your older brother is currently at my apartment, intoxicated, and he apparently has no recollection of where he lives. I don’t have his address, so I don’t know what to do in order to see him safely off home. So please, call me back as soon as you can. Thank you.”

She looks back at Jaime, or rather his legs as he decided to sit on the couch upside-down now, his legs dangling over the backrest.

“You are not at all helpful, you know that?” Brienne grunts.

“I didn’t claim to be. I am drunk. That is the opposite of being helpful.”

“You don’t say?” she sighs.

“So? How do we spend the night now? Do we spooooooon in bed? I didn't see that part of _Wench Land_ just yet?” Jaime goes on to suggest.

“No way in the Seven Hells,” Brienne retorts, crossing her arms over her flat chest.

“I don’t want to go to the Seven Hells anyway. Toooooo hot. Just to bed.”

“I am generous enough not to kick you out of my apartment right now, so you will have to take what you get. And that means the bedroom is taboo for you,” Brienne warns him as she puts her phone back down on the kitchen counter, still praying that it will miraculously ring any second now to release her.

But no such luck.

_Of course._

“Hmmmm, that is tempting, though. Breaking taboooooooos,” Jaime sighs, seemingly quite liking the thought right now, for whatever the reason that may be.

“You can try, but then you will be thrown out of the apartment,” Brienne threatens him.

“That Missus you didn't let me ring up would surely grant me refuge. I mean, mayyyyyybe she would demand of me to become her toyboy for the night, as the sugarmomma, but then I would get at least a bed as I have to sell this _undoubtedly_ … oh, complicated word… handsome body,” Jaime says, gesturing down himself, or up himself, bearing in mind that he still sits on her couch upside-down.

“She is eighty years old and walks with a cane,” Brienne points out to him drily.

“Oh, they are the worst! They are hungry, wench, hungry for some action to put their prosthetic hips to use for!” Jaime croons, finding himself incredibly funny right now, for all it seems.

“I don’t want to think about that, let alone imagine it… could you now sit like a normal human being?”

“But it’s better like that!” he insists.

“You will just make yourself dizzy. Potentially sick. And I don’t want to conclude the evening cleaning up your vomit,” Brienne argues, motioning closer to the sofa.

“Nah, I got a tough stomach. I even suffered through Cersei trying to cook. And she caaaaaaaan’t. For the love of the Seven, the woman can’t. I am so glad she has people doing that for her. Or else I would be dead from foooood poisoning by now,” Jaime tells her.

“And I don’t care,” Brienne sighs.

“You would attend my funeral, though?” Jaime then asks out of the blue.

“Do we have to discuss your funeral right now?” Brienne scoffs.

“Well, _you_ were plotting my murder earlier. Sooooooo we might just as well think about my funeral. Though that may give you away, if you attended. Because the murderer always returns to the site of the crime, you know?” Jaime rambles.

“Which would be my apartment in this case, not the graveyard,” Brienne points out t him.

“True. Would still be helluva awkward.”

Brienne shrugs her broad shoulders at him. “Supposedly.”

“So yeah, you don’t get to murder me. You have to be there for my funeral, wench, juuuuuuuust so that you know,” Jaime says, trying to point at her, though he only points at the TV behind her instead.

“Are you officially inviting me to your funeral?” Brienne asks with a grimace.

“Well, you will receive a formal invitation once the time has come,” he says. “Supposedly in black with golden letters and a bit of red. Lannisters like their gold. Like leprechauns… oh, another difficult word! I am good at this!”

“The early invitation is very much appreciated. Good that we got that out of the way,” Brienne scoffs.

“I am glad, toooooo. Wouldn’t want to find out that you skipped my funeral because you have to escape to Dorne to bypass murder charges. That would make you… a Kingslayer… slayer. Double Kingslayer? Kingslay-slayer? What do you call that, wench? Hmmmm?” he asks, blinking at her.

“I honestly don’t care, Lannister.”

“Jaime.”

“Do you think we can reach your sister or your father?” Brienne asks instead.

“Noooooooooooooooo,” he shouts.

“I thought you are the golden boy. I reckon that you won’t be _grounded_ for that,” Brienne huffs. “While you may behave like a child, you are apparently not.”

“Not grounded perhaps, but disowned. Or mayyyyyyybe even worse,” Jaime argues in a dramatic kind of voice all of a sudden.

“What’s worse than being disowned?” Brienne asks, frowning.

“Imagine he degrades me to a personal assistant position to my sister,” Jaime says.

Brienne holds up her hands. “The horror.”

Though she can say that much for certain: If Brienne had been assigned to that position when she joined the company, she would have handed in her resignation by the end of the first week. Cersei Lannister, while managing herself just fine about important business partners, loves stomping on people she thinks are beneath her.

_And that applies to about 99 % of the population of Planetos._

“She makes people _cry_ , Brienne. _Cryyyyyyy_. My male ego forbids me from crying in public. Even more so my Lannister ego. So yeah, you are not calling either one of them. Cersei will use that to blackmail me because she thinks she is so muuuuuuch better suited for my position than for her own. Father would be soooooooo disappointed if he were to know. And I have to pitch that new business deal to him next week. It’s mooooostly Tyrion’s idea, so _I_ have to pitch it, or else he won’t listen, the ass,” Jaime laments.

“Your family is a mess,” Brienne sighs.

“A hot mess, but a mess, yeah. As the Dothraki say… it is known.”

“And you seriously can’t come to recall your address in _any_ way? I mean, even a district? South, West, East, North of the city?” Brienne asks.

“Nope,” Jaime replies, popping the p-sound more than necessary.

“Great,” she sighs.

“You know what’s strange, wench?”

“Beside all this here right now, you mean?” she sighs.

He nods his head slowly. “Mhmmmm.”

“What is strange, then?” Brienne asks, though she doesn’t really care.

“We’ve been working together for how long now? And I was never, not once in a lifetime, until tonight, hence _not once in a lifetime except for tonight_ , in your apartment?”

“It is not entirely unlikely that colleagues… don’t come by each other’s apartment. Or have you been over at Tormund’s?” Brienne argues.

She never had any illusions about how starting at a new company would instantly earn her some colleagues-slash-friends to have a beer with after work. Brienne does not make friends easily, and while Jaime makes things at the office far too often far too personal to her liking, it is not at all surreal to Brienne that she didn’t ever have one of her colleagues over for work.

And considering the current situation, Brienne reckons she should be glad that this is a rare occurrence after all.

“No way in a thousand gazillion years would I go near that mancave. Baaaaaah! You just know it must smell of musk, sweat, and… pathetic,” Jaime argues, making a face, gesturing wildly, though his arms are moving for too sluggishly to give his movements the expressive power he probably thinks he is transmitting.

“Which proves my point. It’s not at all strange that you have never been at my apartment. Quite on the contrary, _that_ you are at my apartment is the strange thing.”

“But we could change that. I could come by all the while, you know,” Jaime mumbles, looking on pensively.

“You won’t.”

“But I _could_. I now know where you live. Think about it, wench.”

“That sounds like a threat. And I still dare to hope that you will forget all of this here so that, by the end of the day, you will not even come to recall how you ever found your way to my apartment,” Brienne tells him.

“I have your business card, remember?” he replies, tapping against his chest.

“Which I can very well take back again,” Brienne points out to him.

“Nooooo, it’s miiiiiiiiine,” Jaime calls out.

“Would you quiet down just a little bit?” Brienne hisses through gritted teeth.

“Not so long you want to take my stuff!” he pouts.

“Then I won’t, for Seven’s sake,” Brienne grunts, running her hand over her face to ease some of the ache out of her tensed muscles.

Only Jaime Lannister manages to do that to, it seems.

“Good,” Jaime chimes, now sounding triumphant.

“Why are you hugging my pillow?” Brienne asks when she watches him cuddle against the cushion.

“Because you are seemingly not up for hugging in bed, yeeeeeet anyway. Which would be far nicer and cozier,” Jaime mumbles, his face smashed against the pillow, most likely leaving spit there, but at this point, that is actually the least of Brienne’s concerns.

“I dare to doubt that…,” Brienne retorts. “But anyway, do you, by any chance, remember the last bar you were at? Were you there with other people? Friends?”

“You are my friend,” Jaime argues, which has Brienne ever the more irritated. Not once has Jaime even used the word to refer to their relationship in that fashion.

For that, they are apparently way too busy being at each other’s throats all the while.

“We are colleagues,” she corrects him, though there is far less force in her voice than Brienne herself would have anticipated.

“Colleagues whoooooo are frenemies. And frenemies are part enemies, part friends, as per definition. And thaaaaaaaaat is what we are. Ergo… you are my friend,” Jaime explains, looking somewhat proud of himself for getting that sentence out without slurring too much.

“Your logic is unbeatable at times,” Brienne scoffs, hugging her arms, still trying to wrap her head around all this. Not only does she have the CEO’s son slouching upside-down on her couch, dead-drunk, but now that same person, whom she is up to nothing but fighting while at the office, suddenly calls her friend – and for all Brienne can judge – means it?

_Or is it really just the alcohol talking?_

And just why does it upset her so much not to know for sure?

“I know, right?” Jaime laughs.

“Does your oh so magical logic tell you anything of where you were and with whom?” Brienne asks instead of pondering those stabbing questions any longer. After all, she has a mission to fulfill, which is to remove Jaime Lannister from her apartment safely, but nonetheless as fast as she can.

“I was with… _people_. Two… I think it was four later on, though I may have started seeing double at that point of time,” Jaime says, back to studying his left hand again.

“Was it your brother by any chance?” Brienne scaffolds, well aware that the two are very close. She also remembers that Jaime once told her that his best friends are actually part of the family, adding “and isn’t that kind of pathetic?” Though that had Brienne only ever wonder what that would make of her, considering that she has practically no friends outside her own family either.

“One was rather short in size, soooooo yeah… might be… Tyrion is the short one, right?”

Brienne tilts her head to the side. “Yes.”

“Yeah, should have been him, then. I don’t know too many dwarves other than my brother,” Jaime says, nodding his head slowly.

“Well, that just significantly lowered our chances of him answering the phone any time soon,” Brienne sighs, sounding defeated. “Though it begs the question how comes that you parted ways. And why would they let you wander off on your own like that?”

“They said something. And then they were gone. That’s all I know,” Jaime says, rolling his shoulders, which almost results in him slipping further down the couch, but he manages to balance out by holding on to the backrest just in time, but in the motion, something falls out of his pocket, onto the floor.

Brienne scoffs, her eyes following the small container rolling over the ground. “That is _very_ specific.”

“You are talking to a drunk man, wench. What do you expect?” he answers.

Brienne walks closer to the couch table and bends down to pick up the small plastic bucket, twisting it between her fingers as she gets back up. “What is that?”

“What is what?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.

Brienne already ignores him, never actually expecting a good answer, but instead scans the container, her eyes widening once realization dawns on her, only to almost jump when she feels something moving on her ankle.

“Jaime!” Brienne shouts when she sees that he is running his finger up her calf. “Knock that off!”

“Those legs are soooooooo long!” he hums. “And the owner of them finally called me Jaime, too!”

Brienne makes three big steps back, glowering at the man who seems unaffected by all of that, seemingly still more concerned with holding on to the pillow, and apparently keeping his gaze fixed on her legs.

_Just when does this bloody nightmare end?!_

“You can count yourself lucky that you are drunk, or else I would report you in the company first day back at the office,” she warns him.

_Not that this is anything new, though._

Brienne actually sat in that office once to report Jaime for his absolutely indecent behavior towards her, hoping for some kind of mediation, but no such thing. The employee only ever chuckled at her, reminding her what Jaime’s last name was and that she would do better only coming there for something truly concerning.

Or, as the oh so kind employee put it: “I don’t think his father will have his oldest son suspended for something as trivial as calling another colleague names or putting items on your chair without your notice.”

“Oh, c’mon, I was barely touching your long, looooooong leg. We didn’t even go to the fun parts of the leg. Like… further up, thigh-area up sort of thing. Though I guess my arms are too short from this position. Unless you were willing to bend down for me a bit,” Jaime argues. “Do some squats? Hmmmm?”

“I am not at all willing, no,” Brienne answers, shaking her head.

“But iiiiiimagine…,” Jaime means to say, but the tall woman cuts him off before he can even finish the thought, “I don’t want to imagine, thank you.”

“Your loss,” he huffs, shrugging.

Brienne lets out a long sigh, looking back at the container in her hand, which she completely forgot about again when Jaime started feeling up her leg. “Jaime, did you take that medicine before going on a drinking spree?”

“I had a bit of a fever earlier… so yeah?” he answers, frowning.

“How many did you take?” Brienne wants to know, to which he replies, “Two, like I normally do, as prescribed. I know how to take pills, wench. Contrary to what _you_ say, I am not dumb.”

“I know you are not dumb, you are just a fool oftentimes, but you are not supposed to mix them with certain kinds of alcohol. Including wine,” Brienne points out.

While Brienne believes he acts like a fool more often than a grown man his age and status should, she very well knows that Jaime is a capable man, smarter than most give him credit for, something that he, in turn, takes advantage of – because some people still tend to underestimate him.

“Oh, I _definitely_ had wine. I am a Lannister. That is an obligation,” Jaime sighs. “If not genetic predisposition.”

“Which means you don’t know how to take pills after all,” Brienne huffs, gesturing at the plastic container. “Small wonder that you are out of it as much as you are right now. The side effects on the bottle speak a similar language.”

“That means I am innocent, right? I probably didn’t even drink that much. Poor me just fell victim to the evil pills,” Jaime mewls. “It was the PILLS ALL ALONG!”

“You didn’t read the fine print, so that is entirely on you, actually,” Brienne argues.

_And he dragged me into this on tops of everything!_

“Oh, boooooooo, Brienne, boooooooooooooooooo. You could also coddle me now for being sick, wench. You know, the way friends do? Hmmmm? And you wanted to leave me out in the cold!”

“At some point I still regret not following through with that,” Brienne sighs.

At least that would have saved her a lot of trouble.

“You are sooooooooooooooooo cold.”

“We’ve been there already,” she exhales wearily.

“Well, you didn’t warm up yet,” Jaime huffs.

“Quite on the contrary,” Brienne snorts.

In fact, she could now use a long walk outside to cool down, but no such luck so long Jaime Lannister is now not just dead-drunk on her couch, but also under the influence of prescription drugs.

_Great, just great._

Just how does a man manage, within a single night, to tear so many of her wonderful routines down to the ground, leaving nothing but chaos behind?

“I am dizzy,” Jaime groans, pulling Brienne out of her thoughts and back to the man sprawled on her couch as though he owned this place when, clearly, he doesn’t.

“I told you that this will be the result of lying upside-down,” Brienne retorts, hugging her flat chest ever the tighter. Handling Jaime at the office, she believed, was already tough to deal with, but having him inside her cherished private space is so much worse than anything she came up with, based on past experiences with Jaime Lannister, whose one purpose at the office beside work seems to be to drive her insane.

“Will you help me up now or what?” he quips.

Brienne shakes her head. “I warned you, so you handle yourself.”

“If I knock my head against the couch table in the process… I will hold you responsible,” Jaime warns her, already moving around on the couch without abandoning the pillow, however.

“I think I will risk that,” Brienne tells him with a faux smile.

“How daring of you, wench,” Jaime grumbles.

“I am just taking a calculable risk.”

“At my expenses, though, which is innnnnnnsulting. Considering that we are friends. Aaaaaaand round we go,” Jaime announces before turning upside until he lies flat on the couch. “That went better than I expected.”

“Calculable risk.”

“Now don’t give me that _I told you so look_. I hate the _I told you so look_. I like the scowling about alright, you blushing is a treat, but the _I told you so look_ makes me all cringe-y.”

“Well, it is entirely within your powers not to get that look, so long you don’t act like a childish fool, but more like the grown-up man I know you can be if you try a bit harder,” Brienne points out to him, deciding that she should take charge of the situation again.

As it seems, Jaime will spend at least some more time at her apartment, unless Tyrion magically picks up the phone after all. That means Brienne has a mission now – and that is damage control.

She walks over to the kitchen counter to put the pills there, reckoning it might be for the best to put them out of Jaime’s reach in his current state. After that, Brienne roams through her kitchen cabinet until she spots her blue drinking bottle which she normally takes along for jogging, fills it up with water, and walks back over to Jaime, who stuffed the pillow he formerly held to his chest under his head, trying to get into a more comfortable position.

“Drink,” she orders.

“But I am not thirsty.”

“You may not be thirsty, but that will hopefully help clear up your head again.”

“I like my mind dirty as it is,” Jaime argues. “And anyyyyyyyway, I don’t even get a proper glass?”

“You would if I had any confidence that you will leave it intact, something I dare doubt, judging by the way you move,” Brienne answers.

“I am as graceful as a cat,” Jaime retorts, sliding further down on the couch, all the while wrestling with the pillow.

“Not tonight, no,” Brienne replies.

“This is for babies,” Jaime grumbles, drinking from the bottle anyway.

“Which is surprisingly fitting, considering,” Brienne huffs. “Though actually, it’s the bottle I use for when I go running.”

“I do running, tooooooo. We should be running together,” Jaime suggests, his lips firmly attached to the bottle, looking truly like a newborn, if not for the facial hair and body size.

“I don’t think so.”

_Though running away right now seems oh too tempting._

“Why not? Colleagues slash frenemies do that!” Jaime argues. “They slash and run and all that! Why don’t we do that, wench? Why don’t we slash-run?”

“It’s curious to me that you come up with those funny ideas only now. It’s not like you ever suggested something like that to me while sober,” Brienne points out.

She won’t give too much weight to the suggestions of a man who suckles on her water bottle like a toddler trying to fit his pacifier in his mouth. Jaime never made any intention known to make things more personal between them outside the office, thus, quite obviously, Brienne is not at all in the mood to sign up to a jogging club with Jaime Lannister of all people.

“Would you have said yes if I had been sober… while asking?” Jaime asks, wrinkling his nose at her.

“I don’t know, I can only say with certainty that I won’t commit myself to anything a drunk man has to say,” Brienne answers.

“But a man drunk in Wench Land?”

Brienne shakes her head. “No chance.”

“Ugh, spoilsport,” Jaime grumbles. “I am trying to make an effort and _this_ is how you thank me. So ungrateful.”

“It’s ungrateful to insult people in their own home,” Brienne points out to him, busying herself rearranging the pillows on the couch after Jaime rolled over most of them in search of a comfortable position.

“But iiiiiiiiimagine if we lived together happily ever after as a married couple. According to your wenchy logic, it would be ungrateful of me to say aaaaaaanything ever about you in Wench Land, even though that would be myyyyyyyy land then as well. Think about it, wench.”

“In the hypothetical scenario of us putting aside our animosities to actually even consider marriage, trust me, I wouldn’t let you insult me the way you do.”

“I am juuuuuuust jesting. You never take a joke for what it is. Funny, you know. Haw-haw.”

“You give your sense of humor too much credit, then,” Brienne scoffs.

“But you insult me back. I thought that was our… our game?” Jaime argues.

“ _Our_ _game_?” the blonde woman repeats, her frown deepening.

“Well, the thing we do with each other. What makes it alllllll special. Messing around and all. Your paper planes, the blue gibbery goo I leave on your seat sometimes… I thought that was what we did together as colleagueish frenemies…,” he mutters, but then Jaime’s eyes widen at a sudden realization. He lets go of the bottle with a plop, a few droplets sprinkling on his face, as he gasps, “Or are you cheating on me bickering with someone else? I am shoooooook if you dared!”

“There is no one who drives me as insane as you manage to do it, rest assured,” Brienne tells him.

“Oh yes, of course. Because there are no men like me…,” Jaime means to say, but she cuts him off before he can finish one his signature remarks yet again, “I know the rest. Keep drinking.”

“But then I have to pee soon,” he laments, his mouth already wrapped around the bottle regardless of his lamentations.

“And I come to have a bathroom for that special occasion,” Brienne huffs. “Imagine that!”

“Hmmmm, I do wonder what I would find there. I bet you have allllll kinds of juicy secrets in there.”

“Like shampoo?”

“Mhmmmm, and lube, probably. Do you have toys? I bet you have toys. Oh, I bet you have so many of them. All neatly lined up. But where would you put them in Wench Land? Hmmmmmmmmm,” Jaime mutters. “Probably lube and toys, yeah.”

“Probably not,” Brienne retorts defensively, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

This is getting personal on a level she rather wants to bypass, especially with colleagues, especially with the likes of Jaime Lannister who also happens to be her colleague. While Brienne is used to his lewd comments, there is something much more piercing to them now, because he says those things in the comfort of her home, where normally, she is shielded from those kinds of things.

“I will find out in due time. Once I have to peeeeeeeee.”

“So long you leave my cabinets intact,” she huffs, motioning to the couch to pick up one of the blankets, trying to ignore the heat radiating from her cheeks, and doing her best to draw any attention away from that circumstance. If Jaime were to notice only the faintest of blushes, she knows she wouldn’t ever see the end of it.

“Are you tugging me in now?” Jaime asks, frowning.

“As it appears, you will spend at least a few more hours here, and I have no intention to listen to your endless babbling for longer than his necessary. So yes, I am giving you a blanket in the vain hope that you will fall asleep and shut up, for once in a lifetime,” Brienne says, making sure to keep her voice levelled and her face angled away from him.

“You know I never shut up,” he huffs.

“You even talk in your sleep?”

Jaime makes a face. “I don’t know?”

“Oh, hasn’t one of your various girlfriends told you that by now?” Brienne scoffs. Jaime narrows his eyes at that. “I hear a bit of wenchy disappoint right there. Is it that you are jealous of my girlfriends, hmmmmmm?”

“By no means,” she insists.

Why would she? Jaime can date whoever he wants, what’s it to her, right?

Brienne could simply do without him being in her face about it all the time.

_That’s all._

“Oh, you should be. I am great in beeeeeeed,” Jaime says with a lazy smile, shaking his hips for emphasis once, though it looks anything but graceful as he almost falls off the couch in the process. “And not just for pillow fighting but also biting… as in… I know how to make ‘em bite the pillow because they are like oohhhhhhhhh.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Brienne huffs, slightly amused.

Normally, she is the one who will be clumsy, not due to being drunk but simply because her body is freakish big and sometimes moves on its own, it seems, so it is actually a welcoming change to see the oh so perfect and smooth Jaime Lannister struggling with something as simple as lying on a couch.

“But it’s not various girlfriends, you got the numbers all wrong,” Jaime then goes on to say, which as Brienne grimace at him yet again. “Do I?”

“Mhmmmmmm. Because you always make wrong assumptions about poooooooor meeeeeee,” Jaime mutters, moving around to make himself as comfortable as possible, twisting around with little to no grace at all.

“You constantly brag about whatever girl you are currently dating,” Brienne points out to him. And that even though she doesn’t want to hear about it, and he _knows_ that. Which makes it ever the more irritating for Brienne to suffer through it.

As of late, Jaime constantly brings it up, and she hates every bit of it.

“I _take them out on dates_ , totally different story,” he tells her, as though it was the most natural thing on earth.

“The difference being _what_ exactly?”

“If you date someone, you are _together-together_. You know each other’s apartments. You have a toothbrush over at the other person’s place. Oh, and you get to use the lube – and you know where it is in the first place. By contrast… uhm… If you take someone out on a date… you go out dancing, clubbing, drinking, eating… but it can be just that… without the together-together, the toothbrushes or the lube.”

“ _Is_ it just that?” Brienne finds herself asking before she can stop herself.

She shouldn’t even bother asking, why should she care, right?

What would she care whether Jaime is in a relationship with someone or not? It’s none of her concern, her colleagues’ private lives are not her concern, it’s…

“Has been in quite some time,” Jaime says, shrugging his shoulders.

“And yet you brag about it as though you were _Westeros’ Most Wanted Bachelor_ ,” Brienne argues, not quite believing what she hears. While some people will claim that only a drunk man will speak the truth, Brienne is not at all too sure whether she can trust the words of a drunken man who otherwise speaks with one of the sharpest tongues she ever had to deal with.

Though she can’t help but wonder why he bothers telling her those things, now drunk or not. What would it matter to him that she knows that he is not in a relationship, but only dates without toothbrushes being involved?

“Because I am _Westeros’ Most Wanted Bachelor_ , can’t help it. They all want to get into myyyyyyyy pants. Not just the ladies, I’m tellin’ ye,” Jaime explains, flashing a lazy, content kind of grin that has Brienne want to knock him in the back of the head for. “They all want a bit of the Kingslayer, coz they know he can slayyyyyyyy it.”

“It’s always good to know that no matter how far gone you are, your arrogance stays intact,” she sighs.

_And here we go again with the old game… because **that** is apparently our game, Mr. Lannister. _

“It’s not arrogance to know and state your level of skill or value,” Jaime argues.

Brienne makes a face. “So you are a skilled boyfriend, is that what you are thinking?”

“I am a skilled lover. I know how to rock…,” Jaime means to say, trying to wriggle his hips again, but Brienne holds out her hands to gesture at him to stop. “I will interrupt you right there.”

“Oh, don’t be so shy, wench, juuuuuust because you haven’t tried the ride just yet. You’d looooove it, I am sure, wouldn’t ever want to get off of it again, I guarantee it.”

“You can count yourself so lucky that you are drunk and drugged, or else you would fly out of the apartment right now,” Brienne says, trying her best to stay calm even though she can feel more and more heat rise to her cheeks.

“Do you have your toothbrush somewhere else?” Jaime asks out of the blue, which has Brienne turn back to him with eyes wide open. “What? Now don’t change the topic when I am telling you to behave yourself.”

“I want to know whether you have your toothbrush somewhere else,” he repeats.

Brienne can feel cold wash up and down her back at that. How comes that Jaime suddenly wants to talk about those private matters when so very intoxicated when, over at work, he is far more concerned with jesting and teasing her?

The tall blonde is used to him teasing her about whether she has a “sweetheart,” but those jests always came across to her as Jaime wanting to call attention to the fact that Brienne is a single, that, judging by the looks, this is the most likely scenario, which is the reason why she felt ever the more forced to not reveal much of anything about herself to Jaime, no matter how often he teased her about it.

But now he makes it sound like he honestly wants to know.

He makes it sound like he honestly cares.

He makes it sound like he would be disappointed if he were to find out that she has someone.

_But that has to be the booze talking, no way around it. No way. Simply no way._

“And the condition of my toothbrushes is none of your concern,” Brienne says eventually, all the while trying to keep her thoughts inside her head and not allow them to leak to the outside in any way.

“Oh, c’moooooooon, I just told you that I didn’t go on a fun ride in Gods know how long and I don’t even get something on your toothbrush situation? Wench Land is disappointing me right now. Sooooooo disappointing!” he laments.

“And I could not care less whether you enjoy your stay over at my apartment.”

“Maybe you should, though,” Jaime argues. “I am greeeeeeat company.”

“You are _not_.”

“That’s because you didn’t get the whole, uh, package yet. I am good at so maaaaaany things, and by that I mean being good to others in all the… good ways.”

“ _Good_ to know.”

“But you could use more company,” Jaime says, now without the edge of teasing in his voice, suddenly sounding like his mind is far, far away as he looks around her room. “Your apartment looks as forlorn as mine, you know?”

“ _Forlorn_?”

“Wellllllll… I’ll give you that much, it looks more lively than mine because you have all kinds of personal items lying around, but, but, but… no sweetheart, no friends, no party, no music, no TV blaring? You should watch out or else you end up like me, wench,” Jaime goes on to say, as though this was a serious warning, his eyes transmitting that one message “I mean that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks.

“Hm? You don’t wanna be the kinda person who can’t find his waaaaaay home coz it doesn’t feel like home. Isn’t home. Whatever,” he mumbles. “It sucks.”

Brienne tilts her head as she watches Jaime suck the bottle to his lips again, looking on rather sadly this time, regretful, even. And Brienne must admit, there is something turning her stomach upside-down at that, seeing him like this. While she is plentifully annoyed at his lazy smirk and drunken comments, it dawns on her right at this moment, if his drunken stupor can be believed, that Jaime Lannister, for all his talk and charisma… is lonely, too.

And that even though Brienne though that there was nothing to connect them. She always perceived Jaime as this kind of people-person she knows she won’t ever be. Jaime has a way of sweet-talking colleagues, simply has a way with people that Brienne never had, not just because of her looks, but simply because of her nature. She is not the kind of person to approach people. She doesn’t invite people over.

Her apartment is her safe place, her safe haven.

But maybe… the man drunkenly sucking on her bottle has the rights of it, for all the safety and calm the apartment provides, there is something forlorn about it, something lonely, deafeningly silent.

“I moved around too much because of all of that shit, and now home’s not home. So you better watch out that you don’t end up the same way, wench. Or else I have to rescue youuuuuuu like the knight rescues the fair maiden and all that medieval shit,” Jaime goes on, furrowing his eyebrows.

“You mean to rescue me? I think I will pass,” Brienne snorts, finding herself trying to keep the tune light, so to draw away from the dark thoughts reminding her that there is something like this connecting her with Jaime.

“We can always switch position. I like that for a change.”

“And here we go again,” Brienne sighs, rolling her eyes.

What did she expect, though?

“I am just teasing, wench,” he argues. “So you should tease back. You know, our game.”

Brienne shakes her head, feeling tired, suddenly drained of all of her energy. “I am not up for teasing.”

“Ugh.”

“You should sleep now.”

“But I am not tired.”

“You make yourself believe that.”

“And what are you going to do once I grab some shut-eye?” he asks, ogling at her.

“Contemplate my life choices that led to this very situation? So to learn from my mistakes?” she suggests.

“Ah, see, I am such a good visitor, I bring epiphanies along,” Jaime chimes.

Brienne rolls her eyes at that. “Oh, I am so thankful.”

“As you should be.”

“Is there any chance that you will just go to sleep and shut up? Or else I can’t ever make use of your grand epiphanies.”

“Hmmmmm, maaaaaybe.”

“What? Is there something else you need? Because I can only repeat that you won’t upgrade to the bed any time soon, it’s the couch for you,” she tells him.

Brienne blinks as Jaime stretches out his left hand to grab the back of her neck.

“Jaime, what are you…,” Brienne means to say, but that is when he pulls her down to his face and plants her lips on hers. Stunned, the blonde woman remains perfectly still, her entire bodying going rigid.

He is kissing her.

Jaime Lannister is kissing her.

Though, to be fair, it is more of a lazy brush of the lips, halfway on the corner of her mouth alone, but nonetheless… it’s a kiss. On the lips.

Nonetheless, Jaime Lannister is kissing her, in her own apartment, dead drunk, while she stands there in a damp tank-top, unkempt hair, and with no way of guarding herself against the turmoil rushing through her right at this moment.

Brienne can do nothing much but blink as Jaime pulls away, releases his hand from the nape of her neck, and leans his head to the side. “Night, Brienne.”

She observes as her colleague rolls back onto his stomach, buries his face in the pillow, a stupid kind of smile on his face, the bottle falling out of his hand, rolling on the floor.

The tall woman backs away slowly, looks around the living room, but then decides to make for the bedroom. She switches off the lights before diving into the bedroom for cover, quickly shutting the door.

Rationally, Brienne is well aware that she is now fussing about something that was not even… something. It was nothing, simple as that. Jaime is drunk and messed up in the head because of the medications. This was nothing, absolutely nothing. She knows that, deep down, Brienne knows that.

But then… why is it that her heart keeps beating so fast that she feels out of breath?

_Can nothing actually do that?_

Brienne shakes her head before taking her cellphone out of her pocket to check for any new messages, voicemails, a missed call, but yet again… _nothing_. She sighs as she drops the device on the bed before looking around the room.

She has to distract herself somehow. Normally, this would have been the time of the day where Brienne would have be halfway through a film featuring knights or a historical documentary of some kind. Or she would try to finish that one novel she has on her nightstand to read through, but either dozes off before getting to the next chapter or forgets by the time she got ready for bed. Or she would listen to some music on her antique Walkman.

Normally, she would be here on her own, by herself… _alone_.

Brienne shakes her head, running her right hand over her hair, then her face, but as her fingers trace over her lips, she is right back to that tiny moment of nothingness that has her a whole lot more upset than it likely should. She quickly sits down on the bed and picks up the book _The Reckoning of Time_ by Archmaester Walgram to flip open to the page she left with.

_What was the book about again? Oh, right, the problem of how cultures across the Seven Kingdoms and across the Narrow Sea have different time reckonings._

However, Brienne soon has to realize that her time reckoning seems to be one of her own, without a culture, without a civilization to back up the claim, as her eyes keep going back to the closed door behind which Jaime is snoring quite loudly already. Because it feels like years pass at every minute, stretching into an infinity of uncomfortable emotions welling up in the pit of her stomach, every second a small agony, and yet, all the while, the past seems to detach itself as she can feel the smallest nothingness still pulsating on her lips.

Reckoning that now is not the time, the blonde woman eventually decides to leave the book aside, or rather tosses it on the nightstand, turn her back on it and stuffs the spare pillow over her head, praying to the Seven above to show a bit of mercy with her to let her sleep at last, to leave the past to the past and leave her to clean up whatever mess this man managed to create in her safe haven by next morning.

And that even though the thought crosses her mind right as she drifts into the darkness of slumber that there is something different that is not at all bad.

To not be alone for once, for all the troubles it bears…

Maybe, just maybe there is something to that.

And not just nothingness.

But really just maybe.

Or maybe she is dreaming that already…


	2. Shots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne wakes up in her apartment after a night she is sure she is bound to remember, even though she would rather forget about it. 
> 
> However, trouble continues to cause havoc in her normally calm weekend routines when she comes into the living room to check on her uninvited guest...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for sticking to this story, for kudoing and commenting, and sorry that the update just wouldn't come, but I just had to decide whether to just make it a two-part story, but then decided against it. I struggled a bit with that chapter, but now, here it is at last. 
> 
> I hope you are going to enjoy the ride, even though we now switch from drunk!Jaime to more of a hungover!Jaime. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Brienne wakes up to the sound of her phone vibrating beside her on the bed. She takes a moment to gather herself, but the images of the drunken man on the loudspeaker, the drunken man sitting upside-down on her couch, drinking from the bottle she takes for sports, the drunken man who is her colleague and ongoing source of annoyance, the images of Jaime Lannister in her apartment, the images of him pressing a chaste, not well-angled kiss to the corner of her mouth before drifting away to sleep, soon flood back into her, almost knocking Brienne off her feet, if she didn’t lie on bed already.

The tall blonde sits up promptly, glancing at her cellphone, hoping for the sweet relief of a message by Tyrion to finally get over with this mess, preferably so that she doesn’t have to encounter Jaime again. If things were to go right for once, Tyrion may come by, Jaime could just go outside, flit out the door, they could drive away and she wouldn’t even have to leave the bedroom until her safe haven is safe to enter again.

Though looking at her messages, the realization hits her rather soon that it was just a notification that she received a mail for that new sword she ordered for her collection. And normally, this would be the time when Brienne would let excitement shine freely because she would know that no one can see her all loose, when people usually only know her as this constrained, sometimes rather stiff woman roaming around the office. If this was a normal day, she would shout out in glee because that auction took forever and she wanted that sword so badly.

_Valyrian steel, Seven Hells. Then you just have to bid._

Though the auction was more of a fight as someone seemed as eager as she was to obtain that sword with rubies, golden lion ornamentation, red leather scabbard and all. _Until today_ , because apparently, the other person stopped bidding in the online auction.

She would be happy for that right at this moment, but Brienne can’t put her mind to it, because the young woman is made painfully aware of the fact that her safe haven has been viciously attacked, conquered, has been taken over by her colleague, all of the confidence and calm she used to link to that place suddenly vanished.

Brienne gets up, looking down herself with a small shudder running from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She only now becomes aware in what wear she encountered her colleague last night, when that man has only ever known her in blouses, plain business shirts, suits, and trousers ever since they ran into each other.

Or as Jaime once told her during yet another all-nighter they were forced to go through to finish up a presentation because too much of their time had been dedicated to fight, paper planes, and odd objects on chairs: “At some point I am not entirely sure whether you were born wearing a business suit. You wear it like an armor, you know?”

Brienne quickly grabs a less revealing pair of trousers, oppressing the urge to put on her business outfit to feel some kind of professional distance again, well aware that this would only raise more questions from her observant and witty colleague, granted that he is now somewhat back to his senses after not much of that remained last night.

 _Though that is still a huge question mark_ , Brienne thinks to herself while quickly slipping into the clothes. _It might well be that he went back to drooling from my couch upside-down, who knows?_

After adding a dark shirt that is far less revealing of her non-existent curves, the blonde woman feels somewhat ready to walk into the _lion’s den_ , even though Brienne makes a mental note not to ever call it that way around Jaime, or else he wouldn’t ever let that go. That guy has an _obsession_ with relating anything to lions, because it’s in his family’s old sigil, even though no one cares about that these days.

_Though I hope he doesn’t find my little banner that I put on display. I wouldn’t want him to know that I actually fancy mine as well, or else he will only feel encouraged._

Reckoning that time is up, Brienne makes her way to the door and steals into the living room, which, oddly so, feels less like her place, but more like something that suddenly shifted ownership, or at least a part of it. While no furniture was moved and for all she can judge, nothing was broken, something feels entirely different now.

However, looking about the room, Brienne can’t spot the person she left there last night to drool on her pillows.

“Jaime?” she calls out, but no sign from her colleague.

“Jaime?” Brienne keeps saying out loud as she walks around the living room, then checks the bathroom, even the closet where she keeps all of her business suits that only fits a person while ducking his or her head, but then again, Jaime may have found it somewhat comforting, how is she supposed to know?

Jaime was not very sensible last night.

_As that kiss proved most definitely – the man was totally out of his mind._

But no sign of the out-of-his-mind man, still.

A part of her wants to feel relief at the fact that the intruder has disappeared, but another, and quite stronger part of Brienne feels cold dread clutch at her. And she thought the worst that could happen would relate to Jaime having trashed her living room or having decided that clothes were too constraining. After all, Jaime once noted to her that he likes walking around his apartment naked, now that no one knows where he lives for more “Kingslayer Time.”

While Brienne wanted nothing but for Jaime to disappear for good, she is now ever the more afraid that the man ended up getting himself near a busy street. Gods know what state he is in after last night. While Jaime may be well again, the man might just as well still be swaying around from the cocktail of cocktails and prescription drugs.

_What if I just ended up letting Jaime Lannister stumble to his certain death?!_

Brienne already wants to make a dash to the door when she realizes that her key is gone.

“That bastard!” Brienne shouts, quickly fishing into the drawer where she keeps the spare key, only to rush out the door and down the stairs, her mind all the while going over one scenario after the other, each getting increasingly worse.

What if he fell down the stairs?

What if he picked a fight with some thug on the street and lost?

What if he fell into the nearby canal?

What if he ran in front of a car?

_What if…_

While Jaime is a sheer endless source of annoyance for Brienne, she wouldn’t want him to get hurt, not on her watch. After all, she ended up taking responsibility for him last night. It’s her duty now, whether she likes it or not.

And that means that if he winds up hurt, this is on her.

 _And his father is likely to agree by suing me for it_ , Brienne thinks to herself, picking up speed as she almost flies down the stairs. And she would rather bypass a lawsuit led by a man who can intimidate even the toughest guy by just looking at him the wrong way. Because Tywin Lannister just has that kind of aura.

Finally reaching the bottom, Brienne can rule out that he fell down the staircase, which is all but a small relief, because that still leaves about twenty far worse scenarios inside her head on the verge of becoming painful reality.

Brienne already means to reach for the door to rush out into the street, but that is when the door opens. The tall woman takes three steps back, almost stumbling in the process.

“Oh, wench, good morning to you!” she hears the person call out. Brienne whips her head up to see Jaime standing before her.

_Alive and well, thank the Seven._

But her relief is soon overtaken by anger boiling up inside her. The bastard looks perfectly fine, and way too perfect for a man who couldn’t even sit still on her couch last night. Sure, the shirt is wrinkly, there are a bit darker circles under his eyes, and his hair is not perfectly kempt, but that man could still wind up at a photoshoot for the company and make it as a poster boy with a bit of a touch-up.

_Damn this man for all eternities._

And here she worried about him for only just a second!

“Where the Hells have you been?” Brienne demands to know.

“Getting peace offerings and something to sacrifice to the Gods in the hope that you won’t lynch me for last night?” Jaime says, gesturing at a cardboard cup holder with two Styrofoam cups of presumably coffee, with his usual kind of grin and his normal kind of voice, without a lull and without that dumb smile she felt like punching out of him last night.

Though Brienne can’t deny that she would like to punch that smile out of him perhaps even more than that from yesterday, because now the smugness is back that makes Jaime Lannister the annoying little pest he is around the office.

“I thought you were wandering down the street, still drunk or high on meds, getting yourself killed, Seven Hells!” Brienne curses, gritting her teeth, the agitation still surging through her to the point that she feels as though electricity was running right through her – and she wants to get it out.

“Aw, so you care for me after all. That’s cute,” he chimes.

“Shut your mouth!” Brienne yells with closed eyes before letting herself sink down on the steps, needing a moment to breathe again.

_This is too much, simply too much._

“You didn’t even bother putting on any shoes,” Jaime comments.

“I thought you might get yourself killed somehow, so yeah, I didn’t bother with appropriate footwear,” Brienne grumbles, looking at the floor as she tries to get her breathing back in check.

“… I am sorry. I should have left a note… or something. I didn’t think that far, really,” Jaime then says in a tone of voice that sounds almost regretful, and actually earnestly apologetic, which is novelty for Brienne to hear coming from that man’s mouth.

“Yeah, you better should have,” she mutters.

“To my credit, I normally don’t wind up at other people’s apartments after I managed to mix pills and wine in just the wrong way,” Jaime argues. “The etiquette is not that familiar to me.”

“Neither is it to me,” Brienne argues.

She doesn’t have visitors, she doesn’t have friends around here. How is she supposed to know what would be the proper “etiquette”? How is she supposed to know that this man would be fine in the morning, take her keys, and get some coffee?

“I reckoned you would sleep a while longer after that whole mess. I thought I’d be back by the time you’d crawl out of bed. I promise I won’t do that a second time,” Jaime goes on to explain.

“There will be no second time, so _of course_ you won’t do that again,” Brienne points out bluntly.

Jaime grins. “Oh, you know, never say never.”

“ _Never_.”

Jaime only ever chuckles at that, the way he always does, taking some of the intensity out of their brawls almost immediately. “You will have to excuse me to some degree. Inside my head is still a big… _mush_. It is only thanks to my tremendous self-control that I am standing here like this right now instead of drooling on the floor.”

“… Do you sincerely want me to compliment you on not being drunk anymore?” Brienne asks, looking at him with misgiving.

“I want you to cut me some slack,” he corrects her.

Brienne huffs, “I cut you a lot of slack last night, trust me.”

“Right, well… How about we have coffee and maybe… move the formal conversation I suppose is in place to your apartment instead of the hallway? I do recall, if vaguely, that you didn’t want your neighbors to know about any of this,” Jaime suggests. “There was something about sugar and my face hurting.”

“You wanted to get yourself a _sugar momma_ and then fell through the door,” Brienne tells him with a fake smile, because the mere thought brings her back to the sheer anger she felt and makes her want to punch him again for getting her into such a situation.

Though certainly, this is only ever topped by the fact that he kissed her.

“That explains the aching jaw,” Jaime says, rubbing the fingers of his left hand over his stubbled chin.

Brienne gets up wordlessly thereafter and starts to climb the stairs again, this time not even bothering to care whether some neighbor may peek at them through the peephole. Fr that she just woke up, Brienne feels incredibly tired already, and if she were honest with herself, this would be the point of time when Brienne would like to slip back under the sheets, call it a day, and only wake back up once it’s Monday and she has to get back to work.

Once they are back inside, Brienne snaps the coffee Jaime already holds out to her from his hands, reckoning that caffeine may prove to be the one lifeline right now.

“Best coffee in town,” Jaime says with a grin, taking the other for himself.

“How would you tell? As far as I am concerned, you don’t live in that district,” Brienne huffs.

“It said so on the banner they had glued to the door?” Jaime says with a smirk.

Brienne rolls her eyes at that. “Because ads are known to be factual.”

“C’mon, at least appreciate the effort I am making here, wench,” Jaime grumbles. “I bring you coffee, even though the hangover will soon take over, I am sure. I bet most guests you host here don’t do that, do they?”

“Effort? Getting coffee? Stealing my keys and freaking me out by not letting me know to where you are going, you mean?” Brienne retorts. “And by the way, I want those keys back.”

Jaime rolls his head in a grandeur gesture as he fishes the key back out of his pocket to hand over to Brienne, who already holds out her hand to him.

“The second part was totally unintentional. As to the former, I am honestly impressed with myself that I am as fresh as morning after last night. And to my credit yet again, I didn’t hurl anywhere. I call that a major achievement, given the circumstance,” Jaime argues.

“No, hurling you didn’t do, but many other… _things_ ,” Brienne mutters as she puts the keys back into the bowl on the stand by the door.

“ _Things_? That sounds ominous the way you say it. Such as?” Jaime asks, tilting his head to the side.

“You don’t remember?” Brienne asks, blinking, though she doesn’t dare to turn back around to him, well aware that Jaime is the kind of person to see right through her, through any expression, through any lie she may try to tell. And that not only because she is a terrible liar, but also because Jaime Lannister simply has a way of knowing what is going on inside people’s heads. While he insists that this is Tyrion’s most valuable asset, he has some natural talent for that as well.

_That man managed to guess my birthday date by just looking at me and asking me some questions, Seven Hells, and that even though I didn’t want him to know anything personal about me._

And of course that adventure led to him decorating her entire desk in the pinkest and childish way for when the decisive day arrived, almost rolling on the floor laughing when she came in to see that – and see everyone seeing her, when Brienne, at any point, wanted nothing but professional distance.

But all of that distance seems to dissolve in the face of Jaime Lannister.

“Not much. Now that you mentioned it, I have rather vivid recollections of falling through the door and some dick jokes… and pushing you into letting me into your apartment, but after that… things grow hazier and hazier,” Jaime tells her.

 _Thank the Seven_ , Brienne thinks to herself. _Maybe that is the Seven showing me some small favor at last after all, if only to spare me the embarrassment of that conversation._

“Anyway, I thought coffee was generic enough. I also could have gotten a marching band to express my gratitude, but that may have been a _bit_ over the top,” Jaime laughs. “And a bit too loud for my still rather sensitive head.”

“The fact that you even come up with a marching band as an option should make you think about how over the top your life is,” Brienne snorts, turning back around, now feeling a bit more at ease again to face him, because he doesn’t recall, so he can’t read that in her expression so long she dodges the topic.

“I can’t help it that I was born with not just one silver spoon but a dozen of golden spoons in my mouth,” Jaime huffs.

“If you say so.”

“Your family is rich as well, let’s not pretend,” he adds, gesturing around the apartment. “We both know that neither one of us has to work for the sake of the money.”

“And yet, my first thought for a formal apology would not be a marching band,” Brienne sighs with a sarcastic undertone.

“Maybe _a bit_ over the top.”

“Maybe _just_ a bit.”

“So anyway… how about you explain to me how I ended up in this mess?” Brienne suggests. “Because I would like to know how it ever came to it that you winded up at my apartment, late at night, with no way for me to contact anyone because you lost… basically anything that could have given me your new address.”

“Oh yeah, _that_ , funny story, actually.”

“This is not at all funny to me,” Brienne argues.

No, she can’t see the funny parts of having her entire life flipped upside-down in a single night.

“The _story_ is funny, though. Geez, woman. Circumstances matter, you know?”

“Then what circumstances matter right at this point?” Brienne asks.

Jaime licks his lips as he tries to recall all that he can remember, even though Brienne can see that it gives him more trouble than his effortless attitude wants to have her believe. “Well, I was at the office, minding my own business, when Tyrion came by and said that we should go out for drinks… And I told him that I didn’t want to go because I had better to do. But my brother… he has a way about me that only few others have, so eventually, I ended up going with him and Bronn for some drinking spree down Eel Alley, though to my credit once more, I only ever wanted to have one beer and be done.”

“It didn’t go like that, I assume,” Brienne snorts. “Or else you’d be really bad at holding your liquor – or beer for that matter.”

“No, the beer was already way stronger than I anticipated, and then… my brother wanted to do one round of shots and things got way out of hand after that. In contrast to both my siblings whose livers must be dark and full of terrors, I am actually a more or less responsible drinker, believe it or not. But that night, I was gone after just a beer and some shots,” Jaime tells her, waving with his free hand, though his movements are still rather sluggish, compared to the grace he can normally displays – and knows that he does.

“But what happened exactly that you winded up at my apartment? Where did Tyrion and Bronn go to? I don’t understand that bit,” Brienne wants to know, because that is really the one part of the story she needs answers to.

“I don’t know what happened exactly. Things are hazy there already. At some point, Tyrion and Bronn just abandoned me, that’s all I know. We were walking down the street, I recall that much. Then we got into a taxi… drove somewhere… I got out… and then… they were just gone. I don’t know. And that even though they were the ones to pressure me into going out for the drinks in the first place. I was not at all in the mood. I had a date with my couch.”

“Well, and now you had one with mine,” Brienne huffs.

“Which means that I got at least part of what I wanted,” Jaime chuckles. “If in an unexpected way.”

“Do you have any idea just where you left your things?” Brienne asks.

“Tyrion basically dragged me out of my office, so that is when I forgot my wallet, but he paid the drinks, so I didn’t bother going back to fetch it. We have good enough security. Same is true for my keys. And the phone I seemingly lost somewhere down Eel Alley. The only thing I had on me were some coins that paid for the coffee you and I are enjoying right now, but as for the rest… it’s either at the office or gone down Eel Alley,” Jaime tells her, but then groans. “Ugh, now I have to exchange the locks yet again. I don’t want to move into a new apartment yet again. I can hardly find my way to this one yet, as last night proved!”

“A chain of unfortunate events, then,” Brienne comments, because that sounds less like Jaime being a reckless jackass, and more like something that even Brienne will admit can happen to anyone. She would be far madder at him if he had shown no resistance to going out for drinks and had purposely gone out so unprepared.

“Basically, yeah. I mean, I am glad I had your business card in my pocket. I don’t know where I would have ended up with no money, my wits not at all together, and no way to contact anyone I know,” Jaime says, now honestly sounding… _relieved_.

“I will admit that I didn’t want to let you in at all,” Brienne says with a grimace.

“I probably wouldn’t have let myself in, to be honest. So I am grateful that you are a far better person than I am,” Jaime laughs easily, taking a sip from the coffee. “That ad did not hold the truth. This tastes more like bog water with a bit of caffeine.”

“Well, if you had been right in your mind, you may have tried the kitchen for coffee instead of going outside.”

“Do not degrade my gesture and effort, wench. Also, I have no idea how your coffee machine works. All of that would be different if I were around this place more often, but apparently, this is a first for the both of us that you host me here,” Jaime points out.

“Right… so, I will make a suggestion: I will fix up some coffee that is not caffeinated bog water while you can make the necessary phone calls. I’d assume you may want to see about your brother and perhaps even police because of your missing keys,” Brienne answers, meaning to fall back into the pattern that helped dodge most damage last night – make herself busy and preferably out of reach for the man so that he doesn’t get a sudden flashback to what happened.

Because that means she may still have a chance of averting the crisis.

“Sounds reasonable enough, thanks,” Jaime says, but then stops for a moment. “Though I mean that, really. _Thanks_.”

“Oh, it’s… nothing,” Brienne answers quickly.

_Right? It’s nothing, not even a little something._

Jaime turns around to sit on the couch like a normal person in contrast to last night, picks up the phone and starts to dial the numbers, while Brienne carries the Styrofoam cups into the kitchen and starts preparing actual coffee, her thoughts all the while dancing over nothing and nothing again.

Because her mind keeps reeling about the fact that Brienne is the only one who ever made coffee with that particular machine. She never had visitors who stayed the night or were there in the morning ever since she moved to King’s Landing.

And while Jaime was certainly not right in his mind last night, there was something to that whole deal with the toothbrushes he kept musing about, just that coffee machines may belong to the same category.

Brienne is pulled out of her thoughts when she can no longer see Jaime’s back peaking up from the sofa. While she is certain that he didn’t manage to escape yet again, the blonde woman walks up to the couch, carrying the two mugs along, only to find Jaime lying on his back on the sofa, reminding her much more of the man from last night than the man who waltzed in with coffee as peace offering in hand.

“Are you alright?” she asks, grimacing, pondering whether there is such a thing as relapse when it comes to being drunk.

“I _should_ be, but the room started spinning all of a sudden,” Jaime grunts, rubbing his hands over his face. “It spins my head right round, right round, round, round…”

“Overestimated your own abilities after all?” Brienne suggests, admittedly somewhat amused that even the oh so suave Jaime Lannister can step right back into making a fool of himself. Though Brienne can’t help but find it even a bit selfish of her to start to feel better about her own feeling freaked and awkward at the fact that Jaime is back to gibberish talking.

“There is no way I can overestimate my abilities,” Jaime argues, though his voice comes out rather strained. “They are too good for that.”

“Maybe going out, getting the coffee slash bog water was a bit too much even on your _golden metabolism_ , as you like to refer to it,” Brienne tells him, rolling her eyes at the man who started out looking like the poster boy full of sunshine, only to return to looking very, very miserable in a matter of seconds.

“I just need a moment… or three. Five. Maybe ten. Ugh. How can that turn around so suddenly?” Jaime mutters, looking at the ceiling, his pupils rotating to settle on a fixed point, which they can’t seem to find.

“I’d assume that you are also low on sugar and electrolytes, which is now showing,” Brienne says.

“I thought I was going to make a suave kind of re-entrance to gloss over last night, and here I am,” Jaime laments.

 _Great, just great_ , he thinks to himself, but then screws his eyes shut. _I want to get off that damned carousel already, Seven Hells!_

“I am afraid that your entrance, no matter how _suave_ , is not going to gloss over that in any way,” Brienne sighs, wrinkling her nose. “Do you think you are going to be sick?”

“I am not making guarantees for that right now,” Jaime replies.

“Alright,” Brienne mutters, putting down the mugs on the coffee table before walking back into the kitchen to get out a bucket she normally uses for cleaning, which she then posits next to Jaime on the floor. “Just in case.”

“Might be for the best,” Jaime agrees, swallowing. “Oh, the room started spinning again. This time the other way around, though. And that after I finally got used to the other. Round and round and round again.”

“I just hope you won’t go back to your state from last night.”

“Nah, for that I am sober enough already,” Jaime argues. “My body just has to get that message. The damned thing just won’t listen to the voicemail.”

“Let me know once the message was received,” Brienne huffs, if slightly amused.

“Will do.”

Brienne shakes her head. Normally, Jaime makes everything seem entirely effortless. Whatever he does, it seems to do itself on its own. Charming clients? No problem. Making a business deal happen with international competitors in the market? Consider it done.

It took Brienne some time to see that Jaime actually has to work hard, too, and that he apparently puts more effort into his work than most will give him credit for. Nevertheless, he normally has a kind of effortlessness to himself that stands in such stark contrast to the man currently back to slouching on her couch, struggling with the easiest of tasks.

The tall woman wrinkles her nose, looking around the living room, reckoning that she should return to her plan from last night, which was damage control. Thus, Brienne starts to busy herself around the room, picking up the blanket Jaime kicked off, freeing the bottle from under the table, and fluffing up the pillows.

“I actually meant to clean that up myself,” she can hear Jaime comment, still trying to gather himself again from the carousel likely going on inside his brain right now. “But I got dizzy whenever I bent down too much. Or too fast. Or… at all.”

“Which is why it was likely for the best that you left that alone. I rather do _that_ than wipe up whatever you had for dinner last night,” Brienne argues.

“Might be… Ugh, that one thing is for sure, those damned pills go right into the trashcan once I can stand straight again,” Jaime grumbles.

“Don’t blame the pills for your own irresponsible behavior,” Brienne lectures him. “You took them and then went out for drinks.”

“I never ran trouble with them before… until last night… after face-planting and all that funny stuff,” Jaime insists. He thought nothing of it until… well, until he woke up this morning, coming to the realization that he ended up at Brienne of Tarth’s apartment somehow, anyhow, against the odds of this woman being very, very reserved and very, very, very much against making things personal.

“It’s irresponsible already due to the fact that you took something against a fever. When you have a fever, you stay home, didn’t anyone ever tell you that?” Brienne scoffs.

“I am rather miserable in company than on my own in my… _home_ ,” Jaime sighs, the pang of sadness right back in his voice on the last note. “And it wasn’t the almost bad. I mean, it’s all gone now. So at least that job was done outright. But anyway, for the record, there is a rule that when you go out for drinks, you don’t say no when they sing _shot-shot-shot-shot-shot_. Then you just take a _shot-shot-shot-shot-shot_ … and then another.”

Brienne shakes her head. “As I said, irresponsible.”

“Of course you don’t ever do something like that,” Jaime huffs.

“Well, I don’t go partying when I had prescription drugs, that much I can say for certain,” Brienne argues.

“Of course, because you are a party pooper.”

“And considering what _not_ being a _party pooper_ can look like… I think I am fine with that role,” Brienne snorts. “In any case… you didn’t update me on what the phone call brought about.”

“Oh, yes, that all disappeared once vertigo took over,” Jaime grunts. “Good and bad news, I am afraid.”

“Bad news first.”

“I somehow knew you were going to say that,” he snorts. “But I will start with the good anyway.”

Brienne rolls her eyes at him. “Whatever.”

“Well, the good news is that my brother is apparently alive, and that he happens to have my keys, so I won’t have to call up police and move out of that apartment I can’t seem to find while drunk yet again.”

“That is certainly a relief,” Brienne agrees, though she is already mentally preparing herself for the inevitable bad news to come.

“The bad news is that he sounded like I probably did last night. It seems that they drank entire Eel Alley empty after I _somehow_ parted ways with them, so Tyrion is in no condition to be driving, neither is Bronn… I am still not entirely sure how they managed to get home. Judging by how he sounded, they shouldn’t have gotten further than the next-best roadside ditch,” Jaime explains, wrinkling his nose.

 _And if I sounded like he did, I would have thrown myself out of that apartment immediately_ , Jaime thinks to himself, which has him wondering how comes that his normally up-tight colleague found the patience to keep him around. Because Jaime can’t imagine that he behaved himself very well. What he recalls, if only in fragments and blurred images, makes him rather certain that he was a miserable pain in the ass.

_Great, just great. Super great. Awesome. Marvelous. Wonderful. Like crapping a fuckin’ rainbow! That’s just what I needed!_

“So they can’t come pick you up and bring the keys along, is that what you are saying?” Brienne asks, though she is certain she already got the implication.

“Yup, which is why I should call a cab now, and hope the guy will wait until I got the money from my brother,” Jaime grunts, already meaning to straighten back up again, but then falls back down on the couch. “This is not working the way I thought it would.”

No, as Jaime was getting coffee, wondering all the while how he ended up in this situation, cursing Tyrion for forcing him into a _shot-shot-shot-shot-shot_ trip, he was ready to make plans about calling Tyrion as soon as possible, have him pick him up, then potentially knock him in the back of the head for it, and then drive away in the hope that Brienne would be gracious enough to forget about all this here.

Because Jaime honestly can’t afford to have the one colleague he cares about at the office beside his family not look him in the eye again.

However, his yet again dizzy mind is still far too busy calling the shots on how he is supposed to handle the situation instead.

“Then you better stay in that position until the vertigo passed,” Brienne argues. While she certainly does not fancy having Jaime around for much longer, as the thoughts and memories of last night keep pouring into her as she continues her meager attempt of bringing order back, suddenly every object reminding her of what went on last night that seemingly flitted away from Jaime’s by contrast.

_The lucky bastard._

“I am afraid I don’t have many other options… your wallpaper is making me dizzy,” Jaime comments, tilting his head to the side as cohesive thoughts flit away from his mind, leaving him to ogle at the wallpaper instead.

“My wallpaper?” she repeats, looking up from her shelf from which she just grabbed the package of toast bread.

“Too much pattern,” Jaime answers, circling his finger in roughly the direction of the wall.

“It’s big stripes, on one wall,” Brienne argues, opening the package. She rather keeps things simple and clean, and her interior design was meant to mirror just that. She only ever agreed to the blue striped wallpaper because it reminded her of one of her favorite places on Tarth beside her home and the gym, a small inn just by the sea.

“That’s too much already. Monochromatic would serve my eyes better right now,” Jaime argues, blinking repeatedly. “This reminds me of the old test pattern on TV and I hated that thing already back then.”

“You always have the option to just keep your eyes closed for a while, you know,” Brienne huffs.

Jaime frowns. “Are you suggesting that I should take a nap?”

“Well, it’s not like you didn’t spend the last few hours sleeping on this very couch,” Brienne points out to him. “And anyway, a nap seems less intrusive than having to get new wallpaper because it keeps distracting your eyes.”

She stuffs two slices of bread into the toaster, watching them disappear as she pushes the button before storing the package back on the shelf.

“I meant no offense to… the wallpaper. It’s good wallpaper, just nauseating for me right now,” Jaime tells her.

Brienne shakes her head. “I bet my wallpaper very much appreciates it that you clarified that.”

At least the slightly sobered-up version of Jaime Lannister proves somewhat more polite than the dead-drunk one from last night.

“You have a kind… kind of wallpaper, then, so forgiving,” Jaime says, trying to find the words. “Good wallpaper, as I said, good… it’s good.”

Jaime Lannister struggling for the words is actually more of a treat for Brienne now that he is somewhat sober again, because she can see him realizing it and growing frustrated as a result. At some point, she reckons that this may be the Gods’ way of showing her a bit of a favor, because he gets a taste of what it’s like when he manages to make her lose track of what she meant to say, for which he has mocked her often enough over at the office.

“Yeah, I bet…,” Brienne says, biting her lower lip. “Well, in any case, with regards to the bad news… I could also give you a ride, once you can stand up without hurling or kissing my floor because you can’t keep up straight.”

“Who are you and what did you do to my unforgiving co-worker?” Jaime jokes.

“ _Unforgiving_?” Brienne repeats.

He called her many things ever since she started at the company, but Brienne can’t recall that this was among the list of nicknames Jaime kept coming up for her.

“You won’t even forgive me that one time I called you wench during a meeting, remember? Gods know what I had to do to make you talk to me again... and now _this_? You will begrudge me for this till the next Long Night, won’t you?” Jaime explains, having to speak slower as hiccups start to come. “In any case… the point I am trying to make without puking… is… that I thought I should be out the door like… ten hours ago, so that suggestion… surprises me.”

“And preferably you would have been, but it’s weekend and I have no other plans. So we might just as well handle it this way, that’s all I am saying. I can drive you to your brother, and then to your apartment,” Brienne replies quickly, though honestly surprised that Jaime even pays mind to that “wench” incident. She thought he was just joking and teasing until she talked to him, but right now he makes it sound like Jaime honestly couldn’t stand it that she kept ignoring him.

“I could also take my brother’s car going from there, though… oh, that was a good suggestion. I already thought my brains were out the window right now. Good me,” Jaime calls out, tapping against his chest.

“You are _not_ operating a car today, not under my watch,” Brienne retorts promptly, the fear she felt for him when she found the apartment empty still too fresh on her mind. “You don’t remember much of last night, but I do, and that makes me sure that even though you seem more lucid today, I wouldn’t risk you driving a car around. Needless to mention that you find my wallpaper distracting enough already to the point that it has you almost hurling.”

“Point taken. Thanks – again. I owe you for this. And a Lannister always pays…,” he means to say, but Brienne cuts him off, “Don’t say it.”

“Fine, your house, your rules… well, _apartment_ ,” Jaime sighs, taping his fingers on his chest thoughtfully thereafter. “Did you think about getting a house?”

“What? Why?” Brienne asks.

Just where do those questions come from all of a sudden?

He shrugs at her. “Just wondering. You seem like the kind of person who has a house.”

Brienne wrinkles her nose. “Why would you think that?”

“Just… dunno, you are different from me. I guess I am destined to live in a different apartment every six months,” Jaime replies, puckering his lips.

Though truth be told, she rather strikes him as someone who is domestic. Not that Jaime would tell her that – unless he did while drunk, which Jaime hopes sincerely not to be the case – but Brienne has this aura about herself when she talks about Tarth that makes him think that in contrast to him, she has a solid concept of what home means and what a home should look like.

And looking around the apartment confirms that one thing for him – this is a place where life is going on, even if seemingly very closeted and for no one to see.

“What hinders you from buying real estate some other place?” Brienne questions. Because she knows for a fact that Jaime could buy himself a villa any other day with just the snap of his fingers.

_After all, he can get a marching band if he wants to._

“It’s not about _owning_ the property, it’s about _living_ there. And I won’t have that. Ever,” he laments, sounding sadder about this than he originally intended to, because Jaime normally does not mean to share in those things, a Lannister trait long since engrained into his system – not to talk about one’s problems and just swallow them all.

Jaime realized quite early on that there is a difference between owning a place and actually living in it. He used to have an apartment up in the North, for matters of business when they were still establishing the Norther alliance. He was constantly travelling up North until he decided that it may be for the best to buy property there. And for a brief moment, Jaime thought that maybe he would feel somewhat at home there. He liked it in the North well enough, even if Ned Stark kept annoying the living hell out of him, but it was a welcome distraction from the family troubles Jaime normally has to play mediator for. However, the realization hit him rather fast when he walked around the loft with all furniture perfectly set up and him still holding the contract in hand which confirmed that this was his, and it felt no different from spending a night at the hotel.

And in fact, his newest place feels just like this one did, and Jaime has no hope that anything is going to change about that any time soon.

“That seems rather cynical of a guy whose modus operandi normally always is that he can do whatever needs to be done,” Brienne points out to him, because she very well knows that Jaime is not the kind of guy who admits to what he can’t do – because against all odds, he tends to find a way somehow, only ever feeding his overly high confidence.

“I am hung over and I feel like hurling in my co-workers apartment. That _does_ put things into perspective in some way,” Jaime answers. “You know what tonight showed?”

“That pills and wine don’t mix well?” she suggests.

“That, too, but foremost… my life is… not the greatest as of late,” Jaime admits, much to his own irritation.

Though perhaps he swallowed too much wine and this is the reason why he can’t swallow up his problems and emotions right now.

_Or maybe I am just ready to hurl. One of the two most definitely._

“Because of the apartment?” Brienne asks.

“ _Something_ like that,” he sighs.

“Well, maybe things will look brighter once you are no longer hungover,” Brienne suggests, surprising herself with the comforting tone she finds herself using.

“I dare to doubt that, but hells will I take Brienne of Tarth’s rare kind of optimism. I didn’t even know such a thing existed,” Jaime laughs.

Brienne shakes her head wordlessly before going back to the kitchen, reckoning that if she wants Jaime to get back on his feet so that she can take back her apartment at last, she has to see to it that he doesn’t require slouching on her couch to keep upright.

And anyway, it can’t harm to keep a bit of a distance, because Brienne can feel the fine hairs in her neck rising whenever she finds herself in close periphery to the man.

“Wench?”

“I won’t respond to that now that you are more or less sober.”

“You just responded,” he points out, but when only silence meets him, he adds feebly, “Brienne?”

“Yes?”

“You would tell me if I did something epically bad, right?”

“Why are you asking me this?” she questions, biting her lower lip as she tries to focus on anything but the images of last night dancing on the tip of her nose.

“I just don’t want bad surprises. This is bad surprise enough for me, trust me.”

“I wouldn’t call it _epically bad_ , though I am glad you didn’t follow through with trying to ring up my elderly neighbor in the hope of her becoming your _sugarmomma_ , to quote,” Brienne tells him, hoping that by focusing on those things, she can navigate around the boulder standing in the midst of the ocean of her home revolving around that nothing-kiss that she knows she should pay no mind to, but does anyway.

“You would have had to rescue me from the woman’s clutches, then. Gods know what the old ladies can do with their bony fingers…,” Jaime says, gesturing with his fingers.

“Oh, I definitely would have left you to your own fate, believe me that,” Brienne huffs.

“How cruel… you seriously would have just watched on as she dragged me around the apartment as her sex slave?” Jaime gasps with fake exasperation.

“Totally.”

“Ugh. I guessed as much…,” Jaime grunts. “So I am glad you didn’t let me sell myself to her… but once I got in here, any… like… ugh… things I have to organize a marching band for?”

“As I said, you didn’t trash anything, didn’t throw up… I suppose it could have been worse,” Brienne insists, if only to convince herself.

 _This was nothing. Absolutely nothing_ , she keeps repeating to herself.

“Something tells me that you are not completely honest with me right now, wench, which is unlike holy Brienne of Tarth with her halo and… good kind of wallpaper,” Jaime argues, narrowing his eyes.

“I am _not_ holy,” Brienne retorts. Because she hates it when people call her a saint all the while, because while Brienne tries to keep to her codex of honor and honesty, she honestly despises it that people take her as this kind of unapproachable person who is only ever good intentions.

_Though the again, that is what you supposedly get when you keep to yourself all the while._

“You don’t party, you always read the fine print, heck, you probably even read through all terms of service for _InstaWarg_ ,” Jaime argues.

“I don’t have that app,” Brienne answers.

“But you _would_ have read the terms of service before downloading, I am sure. You probably would have downloaded it to a folder on your computer to save for later… and a backup-copy just in case…,” Jaime thinks out loud.

“You wouldn’t have read the terms of service?” Brienne questions.

“I did not. I never do, and _that_ is the point… You don’t ever go wild and throw all rules overboard ever since I got to know you… and that has been some time ago, so… yeah, you are a saint. Saint Brienne of… ugh,” he grunts as nausea washes over him all of a sudden.

“ _Tarth_. You struggled with that already last night,” Brienne points out, taking a bit of mischievous delight at seeing him clutch his stomach – because it does serve him right that he gets to suffer a bit for all that he put her through and still puts her through right now.

“I was trying really hard not to make any jokes about tarts and barf right now, consider this an effort I am trying to make,” Jaime moans.

“Say what you will, I am no saint,” Brienne sighs.

“You granted refuge to a drunk colleague who was a miserable pain in the ass! They should give you a medal for this at the office! Or plaster your face to the fridge with a good-student-star… I never got a good-student-star back in school, haaaaah, funny.”

“You _are_ aware that no one at the office is supposed to know about this, right?” Brienne reminds him – because she reckons it can’t be early enough to hammer that into Jaime’s brain.

This is nothing – and it’s supposed to be forgotten about entirely, easy as that.

“What? I bet that would make for a hilarious story to spread in the cafeteria!” Jaime chuckles.

“You would want to humiliate yourself like that?” Brienne snorts.

“Humiliation entails that I would give a damn on what those little shits think of me… and I don’t… I seriously don’t. Ever. Everrrrrr.”

“Well, not everyone is like you in that regard,” Brienne huffs, shaking her head. “Though I do wonder why you start sounding more like you did last night.”

“Because your wallpaper is distracting me again. My brain is very selective right now – so don’t judge,” Jaime tells her, wrinkling his nose as he tries to gather himself again, all the while repeating his mantra of not to hurl on Brienne’s couch.

“I judge you for a lot of things, but that seems to be the least of my concerns at present,” she tells him, all the while pondering whether Jaime actually has some recollections of last night or is just sensing something in her tone and builds on that.

When the toasts pop out of the toaster, Brienne almost leaps onto that slices of bread to keep herself distracted, puts them on the next best plate that she can find and carries the platter back over to the living room to where Jaime still seems to try his best not to get sick. Jaime ogles at her as though she was a being from outer space as she holds out the toast to him.

“I would recommend you start with the dry toast, just in case. If you can keep that down, we may move up to something else,” she says, waiting for him to finally take the platter so she can take refuge in the kitchen again.

“Now you are also feeding me? Shit, woman, at this rate, I will owe you a million favors by the time you drop me off,” Jaime groans as he sits up a little straighter, though not really in the position that most others would take in order to eat.

“It’s _toast_ ,” Brienne points out to him drily.

“A toast full of achievement and holiness. All hail toast!” he calls out, waving the slice around, but then starts to frown at it. “… And why am I eating toast again?”

“Hydration and carbs are what you want to go for when you are hungover,” Brienne explains., though Jaime only ever frowns at that. “How do you know so much about that? I thought you don’t _parteeeeyyy_?”

For emphasis, Jaime rolls his shoulders perhaps a bit more rhythmically than he would have last night, but still not nearly as graceful as he likely would while at an actual club. Not that Brienne would know – she never went to the club with Jaime, she never went to the club with a colleague at all. So who knows? Maybe Jaime is a terrible dancer, in fact. Though Brienne is fairly certain that this is going to be one of those secrets she will never know about.

“And I normally don’t, but I do know how to operate a search engine. Carbs and hydration were on the top of every list I looked up while you were busy marveling at my kind wallpaper,” Brienne answers.

“You…,” Jaime says, pointing a finger at her. “You are good at this. Also, no burned toast! I always burn my toast… or it’s just wobbly like a limp dick… the thought defiles this holy toast, so I take the limp noodle back to where it belongs… stashed away and not exposed to the light of day.”

“Well, as to your toast issue, maybe your toaster is crap?” Brienne suggests.

“It’s a fancy toaster. Cost a small fortune. Stainless steel. Five standard settings. Individualized setting option. Cool-down function… at some point I still try to figure out whether that thing can’t also do tax returns,” Jaime argues.

“Mine cost twenty stags, has two settings, survived the trip all the way from Tarth to here, and makes the perfect toast for years now,” Brienne points out to him.

“And now the Holy Brienne is even frugal and modest, buying cheap toasters and all. Ugh, at his rate you are going to get your halo any damn minute now,” Jaime laments.

“I am _no_ saint,” Brienne insists, clenching her fist slightly. “Just eat your toast.”

“Maybe I should keep it and frame it. I mean, hecks, that toast is magical!”

“You are no longer drunk, so you might want to drop the attitude that came with last night,” Brienne grumbles, walking back over to the kitchen, suppressing any urge to tell him how she hates it when he refers to her in that way, because Brienne reckons that this is no conversation she should be having with Jaime Lannister of all people, in this of all settings, in this of all places.

“I am just ecstatic about that holy toast,” Jaime argues, waving the slice around another time for emphasis.

“You either eat up and stop with the speeches about my status on the saint scale, or you can walk to Tyrion’s apartment,” Brienne warns him.

“Ah, that sounds more like the colleague I used to know. I already feared she had disappeared somehow,” Jaime chuckles, though he is even halfway honest on the matter. Jaime wouldn’t want to have things completely changed between him and Brienne because of this stupid incident. For that, he is finding himself far too much enjoying those office conversations and fights.

In fact, they make up most of the highs of his day, which is too sad an admission to make over holy toast, slouching on your colleague’s couch.

“You _feared_?” Brienne repeats with a grimace.

“Saints are not as much fun to tease back and forth with. If you don’t threaten me, what’s the point in teasing?” He shrugs.

“Well, I tend to think there is no point in teasing at all, but who am I to say?” she sighs.

“There’s nothing against a good-natured tease. Teases are _teasingly_ amazing. You tease me with toast, think about it. _Toastease_. Or something.”

“Your word creation abilities are… unique.”

“Just one of my many, many talents,” Jaime chimes.

“Yeah, how about you use your _many, many talents_ to get started on the whole rehydration and re-carbonation routine?” Brienne suggests.

“Well, I suppose I will have to eat the magical toast if that makes me regain my strength. I can’t become a literal couch potato around here, can I?”

“Not really.”

“That’s what I thought,” Jaime snorts as he slowly changes position so to look more like a normal person, reckoning that it might be yet again the right time to show some kind of decency to counter all of the indecency he is sure to have displayed last night. Because Jaime can’t imagine that Brienne took those for a good-natured tease at all.

The toast accompanied by the coffee Brienne soon hands him, Jaime finds himself feeling much better indeed. While his head is still all over the place, he feels less and less like throwing up, which is a definite plus at this point.

Though Jaime can’t deny, if only to himself, that it is nice to sit in an apartment that is apparently someone’s home, having toast and coffee – and someone other in the flat. It makes him feel something that he knows he won’t have over at his apartment ever since the paparazzi incidents came upon him. Thus, this is a short moment of escape he will have to cherish for a long while, because Jaime sees no chance of improvement any time soon, even more so because chances are very low that Brienne will have him as a guest _ever_ again.

Once he is done with the toast and coffee, Jaime gets up to carry the mug and plate back into the kitchen, thankful for the lack of vertigo taking over this time.

“Thanks another time,” he says as he puts the items down, finding the small jump Brienne does out of surprise rather charming. That is what makes teasing her all the more of a pleasure, alongside her huffing and scowling – Brienne of Tarth caught off-guard is always a kind of treat for Jaime personally.

“So? Do you think you will be able to handle a ride?” Brienne asks hurriedly as she puts the dish and mug away quickly to cover up the fact that she still feels like a jumpy deer whenever she has Jaime in too close periphery.

“I don’t think I have much of a choice, now do I? Though I would suggest that we take some bag along just in case my intestines decide to go for another round of tango,” Jaime answers with a crooked kind of grin.

“Oh, you bet. That’s already in my pocket,” Brienne huffs.

“You always plan ahead, don’t you?”

“With you, it’s trying to control the chaos, so yes.”

“Then… let’s go so I can kick down Tyrion’s door.”

“I would not advise you to do that in your current state,” Brienne argues as she exits the open kitchen, feeling somewhat exposed again as she can feel Jaime moving behind her back. She quickly grabs the keys and her jacket before opening the door.

“Oh, you know, I love the danger,” Jaime jokes as he goes outside, dutifully waiting for her by the stairs until Brienne is finished locking the door.

Thus, the two continue down the stairs for the second time in the day.

Jaime takes his time looking around the staircase, now that he actually doesn’t have his mind go over “do not fall down the stairs” and “how do I organize a marching band for Brienne to forgive me” so prominently on his mind anymore. His eyes lock on one door sign in particular, making him smile. “Manwoody? I bet I made fun of that name.”

“You most definitely did, even though it was not at all funny.”

“That’s hard to imagine for me,” Jaime argues. “I am a comedian stuck in the body of an attractive businessman.”

“And here I thought you were a TV star stuck in the body of an attractive businessman, or the adventurer, or the superhero, or what not.”

“So you do admit that I am attractive?”

“Ugh,” Brienne grunts.

“C’mon, you can say it.”

“Watch your step.”

They reach the bottom of the stairs and continue to the parking lot thereafter, Jaime finally catching sight of something familiar, as he saw Brienne’s car before. He climbs into the vehicle slowly, thankful that his stomach keeps it low this time.

“You will have to give me the directions,” Brienne says as she buckles up. “Or you give me the address and I type it into the GPS. I don’t know how well your brain is handling direction right now. You weren’t too strong on that last night.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I hate the GPS’s lady’s voice anyway.”

“You can change it, you know?” Brienne argues as she starts the engine.

“I would rather have you voice my GPS and yell at me to turn this way or the other way. That would make the ride far more entertaining.”

Brienne shakes her head as she pulls out of the parking lot and follows Jaime’s thankfully precise directions as they drive down King’s Landing’s not so busy streets at this hour of the day.

The car ride is mostly filled with silence, which has Brienne both relieved and anxious as ever tock-tock of the street lights feels like a hammer knocked against the inside of her skull to let something out that she is desperate to keep in. Brienne is intent on focusing on the road, doing her best to transmit that notion with her entire body, if only to dodge any questions that may be coming from Jaime concerning last night, now that she lacks the luxury of her escape zone of the kitchen.

“…Is there something utmost terrible that I did that I need to apologize for?” Jaime asks out of the blue, which has Brienne clutch the steering wheel even tighter than usual.

“What?” Brienne stammers. “We already had that. You didn’t trash anything, I told you. Why do you keep bringing this up?”

“Because I have the feeling that I did something, I just can’t quite put my finger on it,” Jaime explains. He can see it in the way Brienne moves. Normally, she is rather confident in her steps, something that Jaime always appreciated about her, but now every move, even so little as changing the gear, has Brienne flinch away when she only so much as feels his sleeve brush against hers.

There must be something that he did that has Brienne act like that, and Jaime would rather know to do damage control.

Because he can’t lose the bit of good time that he has with Brienne while at the office as well. For that, the lack of a home is consuming too much of his happiness as of late already.

“You did some many weird things, but you were drunk, so… we should just forget it,” Brienne replies, chewing on her lower lip, making sure to keep her eyes glued to the street or the rearview mirror.

“No, there _was_ something. I know there was something out of the ordinary. C’mon, help me out here, wench, I am trying to piece this together,” Jaime pushes her.

“Just forget it,” Brienne retorts more forcefully than she intended to. “You were drunk and drugged, forget it.”

_Just forget so that I can finally put it away, too, Seven Hells._

“You push on the forgetting part quite a lot, you do realize?” Jaime points out to her.

“Because I would like to forget all of that,” Brienne tells him.

“So I was _that_ terrible a guest? Oh, I would put my dear father to shame.”

“Can we just leave the topic aside? I have to concentrate on driving,” Brienne hisses.

“Fine,” he huffs, rolling his eyes. “Your car, your rules is apparently a rule, too.”

“Just make sure you won’t throw up.”

“Will do.”

After that, they speak no more, safe for Jaime occasionally telling her when to turn left or right. Eventually, they arrive at the apartment complex where Tyrion has his loft. Brienne parks the car.

“Alright, I will get the keys now. Last chance to get out of giving me another silent drive, for the record,” Jaime tells her.

“I will be waiting here,” Brienne replies stubbornly. “Just be quick about it.”

“Okay,” Jaime sighs as he unbuckles and opens the car door. He climbs out, momentarily feeling nauseous, but soon catches himself as he makes inside the building, looking back only once he is inside to see Brienne holding her smartphone way closer to her face than she has to in order to read, seemingly intent on distracting herself from whatever must be on her mind.

Jaime shakes his head as he waves at the concierge briefly before making his way up to the elevator, thankful that the guy knows him so he won’t ask uncomfortable questions regarding the matter. Once he is on the right floor, Jaime gets out of the elevator leading to his brother’s loft. At some point he still can’t believe that he is stuck in such a situation thanks to his little brother’s drinking sprees down Eel Alley.

All he wanted was an evening of silence, watching TV, and being miserable within the comfort of his home-not-home.

And now he owes Brienne about fifty favors – and that even though Jaime would rather not be at odds with her at all. Certainly he enjoys a good fight with her, but being at odds with Brienne of Tarth has never done him any favors. Quite on the contrary, that resulted often enough in him having to apologize, which is, to Lannisters, the equal of having to swallow acid, or that she would look at him with her big blue eyes holding nothing but judgment and misgiving.

And the fact that she won’t fill in the gaps that Jaime desperately searches the missing pieces for has him ever the more convinced that there is a bomb hiding under the car Brienne is currently sitting in, clutching the steering wheel as though her life depended on it. 

Something is very off about this whole situation, and it’s not just the fact that he woke up cuddling a pillow that smelled of Brienne’s shampoo.

Jaime finally reaches the door to his brother’s apartment and knocks on it as loudly as he can. After he spoke to Tyrion on the phone the older brother is not entirely convinced whether Tyrion went right back to sleep after the conversation was over, which is why he is not taking any chances now.

After some long, _long_ moments, Jaime can hear staggering footsteps, a groan, what sounds like a punch in the gut, then another groan, and then the door opening slightly ajar to reveal his little brother standing before him with a crumpled white shirt and boxer briefs with golden coins on them.

“Ugh, what are you doing here?” Tyrion groans, ruffling through his unruly curls.

“Getting my keys, and checking whether one of you sits in a bathtub with a missing kidney,” Jaime answers. “As I told you during the last time we spoke already, remember?”

“No, didn’t sell a kidney last night, maybe my soul when we went into one of Baelish’s most wonderful strip clubs, because damn, was that girl flexible, but other than that… nothing lost or cut out or otherwise surgically removed,” Tyrion replies, tapping down his body, as though to make sure that everything is where it ought to be.

“Good,” Jaime huffs. “So… keys?”

“I didn’t expect you to be like this in the early morning hours, geez,” Tyrion groans, rubbing his eyes.

“Then what did you expect?” Jaime wants to know.

“Something more like me?” the younger brother answers, gesturing down his disheveled self.

“I have a good metabolism and had some breakfast,” Jaime replies quickly. “Now c’mon, I don’t have time for this.”

No, he is fairly certain that time is ticking for Brienne as she ponders whether she will just gracefully ignore him or stare him down whenever he comes to the office now. And Jaime wants to keep those cafeteria conversations and bantering at the office, or else he is bound to go insane rather sooner than later.

“It’s _weekend_ , of course you have the time. Also, don’t make a drunken man move too suddenly, or else you risk that he may hurl on your shoes,” Tyrion grunts.

“Brienne is waiting in the car and I don’t think she fancies waiting that long just because you can’t seem to get a move so that I can get back to my apartment,” Jaime urges the younger man, who perks his head up at that. “She is giving you a ride?”

“Yeah, as I told you, I winded up at her apartment last night… _somehow_ ,” Jaime answers. “Anyway, she is kind enough to give me a lift. So now, don’t screw this up any further for me and give me the damned keys.”

“The only one who should be screwing is…,” the younger man means to say, but Jaime cuts him off harshly, “Tyrion.”

“Fine,” the younger Lannister brother grunts, rummaging through a bowl set on a small wooden table close to the door, though he looks like he wants to find it with his nose, as close as he has his face to the bowl.

“Are you alone here?” Jaime asks with a grimace.

“No, no, I just stepped on Bronn… I think it was Bronn… I _hope_ it was Bronn… I wouldn’t fancy waking up to some male strippers like him on the ground. That’s just not my vintage of wine… oh, there they are!” Tyrion announces as he carries the keychain in question back to Jaime, almost stumbling three times over that short distance. “There you go.”

“Remind me to never go partying with you ever again,” Jaime huffs as he stuffs the keys away.

“I can’t help it that you can’t hold your liquor like a grown man,” Tyrion snorts.

“You should be careful about that. Remember who plays chaperone slash babysitter for you at the clubs all the while?” Jaime huffs. He lost count of the number of times he got a late night call from his little brother, moaning into the telephone to come pick him up because Bronn abandoned him at some point, which happens more often than not.

Which has Jaime wonder how Brienne put up with that – because Tyrion enjoys the advantage of being his little brother, whereas Jaime is to Brienne no more than a colleague, he is aware, and in all likability, nothing is going to change about that circumstance any time soon, because he screwed any chances of changing that for quite a long time still to come, Jaime is quite sure about that.

Though Tyrion may profit from that, as this means that Jaime will have more time to spare to look after his wine-loving brother, if only to repent for the sins seemingly committed last night, even though Brienne makes a secret about it as though it was the literal Pandora’s Box.

“And I thank you every time. Plus, I am your adorable, dwarfish little brother. You are inclined to love me so much to pick me up from the shadiest of strip clubs,” Tyrion snickers.

“You can’t even imagine how lucky you are that I am genetically inclined to care about you even when you behave yourself like that.”

“Oh, c’mon, Jaime. You were so much fun last night! You should go partying with us more often!” the younger brother laughs, kicking at a stone definitely not there, only to almost stumble at the failed attempt.

“I will most definitely not.”

“What? Did Brienne forbid you?” the little brother teases.

“You will keep her out of this,” Jaime warns the other man, who holds up his hands in surrender. “Oh, someone is being a spoilsport so early in the morning already.”

“I will get back at you for that, trust me,” Jaime threatens him as he pockets the keys.

“You will thank me in due time, you’ll see.”

Jaime rolls his eyes. “I bet. Bye.”

“Bye, brother dearest. Have a nice day,” Tyrion chimes, sluggishly waving at the man as he turns to leave.

“Oh, it’s going to be _tremendous_ , thank you _so_ much, _brother dear_!” Jaime curses as he starts back down the hallway leading to the elevators.

“Love you too!” Tyrion calls after him, laughing, which has Jaime wonder just what his brother would be cheerful about, but then again reminds himself that Tyrion must bathe in his humiliation.

And judging by his amount of luck, Jaime is just waiting to get stuck in the elevator or somehow achieve it that his one bit of joy will be taken away from him now, too, and all that thanks to some stupid _shot-shot-shot-shot-shots_.


	3. Apartment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne finally reach his apartment, but both are in for some life-changing revelations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for sticking around, for kudoing and commenting and generally being amazing.
> 
> Anyway, this is the second last chapter. There will be an epilog hopefully little time from now to sum it all up and make it a neat bundle, but at least we now get to the fun bits.
> 
> So yeah, I hope you are going to enjoy.
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

With his steps still a bit uncertain, Jaime makes his way back to the elevator, thanking the Seven that his brother does not require him taking the stairs because those prove to be a thing of difficulty for Jaime, still, even though he tries his best to appear like he is doing just fine. After vertigo banned him back to Brienne’s couch, Jaime realized that pills and wine truly don’t mix well, even less so when you add some _shot-shot-shot-shot-shots_.

Jaime simply cannot afford to have any more life-lasting embarrassment added to his list. All of what seemingly happened, or according to Brienne did _not_ happen, Jaime would rather erase from public memory. And since that is a thing of impossibility, still, Jaime wants to not add any more to the list.

He just has to get back to the apartment without hurling or otherwise making a fool of himself and then he can dive back into the monotony of his life that is not awaiting him at home.

After another wave at the bored concierge, Jaime makes his way outside, taking a moment to blink as the sunlight makes him dizzy in the head, but the young man is quick to catch himself to walk over to where Brienne is still focusing all of her attention on her phone as though it was a tiny armor to hide her face behind.

_But it’s too small to hide you away, wench, don’t you realize?_

“Thanks for not driving away after all,” Jaime comments with a small smirk as he gets back into the car, shutting the door with a loud clank that has him want to groan, though he holds it back.

“You really think I would have done that?” Brienne asks with a grimace he can’t read.

“Nah, you are too honest for that. You are set on keeping your oaths and all that. But I am glad I didn’t corrupt you enough just yet to make you reconsider and join the dark side,” Jaime answers as he moves around on the seat to find a comfortable position.

“So you got everything?” the tall, blonde woman asks, slowly daring to tear her gaze away from the device, if begrudgingly so.

“Thankfully, Tyrion apparently didn’t have fun with the spare key. I already feared he may have found the time to flush it down the toilet,” Jaime comments.

“Why would you think he’d flush it down the toilet?” Brienne asks, frowning.

“After last night, I don’t think anything is impossible for a drunken man to do,” Jaime answers.

“True again,” Brienne mutters.

_Like kissing your colleague out of the blue, it seems._

“Well, so we are good to go to my… _apartment_ now,” Jaime announces.

Because the word “home” won’t pass his lips no matter how much Jaime even tries to pretend that it is such. It is no home, hasn’t been ever since he moved in, and won’t be unless a damn miracle happens.

And judging by the fact that he still has to try hard not to hurl in Brienne’s car and thereby scar their relationship more than he already did, judging by her hiding attempts behind electronic devices, Jaime is not waiting for miracles today.

“Alright,” Brienne mutters as she stuffs the phone away and restarts the engine. “How is Tyrion?”

“Alive, and didn’t sell his kidney on the black market,” Jaime confirms, leaning back in the seat to find a position that is most comfortable while at the same time shaking him through as little as possible because he just has the bad feeling that taking just the right turn may make this car ride go terrible wrong.

Brienne frowns. “He tried that before?”

“Tyrion once talked to some shady guy at a strip club and said that he would donate his cock for _scientific research_ ,” Jaime huffs. “He was very, _very_ drunk when he slurred that over the phone. So I had to play chaperone and hated every second of it as he bemoaned the fact that his cock would now not go to the _King’s Landing Museum of Natural History_.”

“Oh, so you know that song yourself?” Brienne asks, almost feeling a bit better at the thought that he had to suffer through something similar, if with a different person.

“In fact, yes. Which is why I am well aware that I owe you gratitude for not ditching me when you could have – and likely even should have,” Jaime snorts. “Those are hours of my life I won’t ever get back.”

The hint of a smile on Brienne’s lips has him calm somewhat as he feels some of the tension dissolve, even though it remains solid between them, reaching all the way across the center console.

“You shouldn’t sweat it,” Brienne assures him quickly, her eyes focused on the road.

Because the more Jaime makes mention of it the more she has to think back to the sensation of his lips on hers and how that made her feel as a result, though Brienne is not yet sure what exactly that feeling was as she never experienced it before.

Though last night, generally speaking, made her experience some many things she never did before.

“Mhm, let’s see how you are going to be about it once we are back at the office,” Jaime huffs in a light tune.

“It will certainly depend on how _you_ act around the office,” Brienne points out to him. “Because if you make a big deal out of it to other people, you can be sure that I _will_ sweat it.”

Jaime nods his head. “Duly noted… you have to turn left over there.”

They continue the ride yet again mostly in silence as Jaime gives her the directions, even though the young man must admit that he struggles giving her those directions more than he did with Tyrion’s apartment. Because apparently, even that place is more of a home to him than this damned apartment downtown that he now calls his own.

Sometimes Jaime really loathes his reputation, if only for the mere circumstance that it can take something as simple yet so curiously important as the sense of home away from him. While Jaime’s old apartment was not exactly a comfort zone either, he is sure he could have found it even while dead drunk, and he didn’t have unpacked boxes standing around that he can’t find it in himself to unpack because “why bother?” like he has it in this apartment now.

His new place to live, or rather, simply exist after and before office hours, was at least close enough to feeling home, but his new loft is just where his mail is being delivered to, where he eats and drinks and sleeps, and works out in the morning. However, that is as far as it gets – and no further. And to Jaime’s understanding, that is not even close to being a home. Home should be a place you want to return to, a place where he feels comfort, a way to shield himself from the madness at the office.

However, as of late, his work place felt more like home to Jaime than his new apartment ever did. Because there, at least, he is surrounded by the familiar. There are no unpacked boxes in his office, he has his miniature sword collection neatly lined up at the front of his desk and he has a secret stash of energy bars in the back of the bottom drawer. Plus, he is surrounded by people he likes to varying degrees or dislikes to the point that he has his dear fun making jokes at their expenses. His family is there, too, though Jaime will admit that he would sometimes rather have a bit more distance to them as they tend to drive him mad as of late.

_And then there is Brienne…_

“Aaaand, this is it,” Jaime announces with little enthusiasm once he sees the familiar shape of the building he lives in coming into sight. “Less impressive from the outside than from the inside, I may add. It’s all fancy marble floors and amphorae with exotic flowers on the inside, because apparently, people find that important.”

_Even though that makes this place feel even more like a hotel than it does anyway._

“You don’t?” Brienne asks as she maneuvers to the next open parking spot.

“I do like a good old marble floor like anybody else, but I don’t need exotic flowers to make myself feel at home, really. They could at least use local plants, wouldn’t you think?” Jaime ponders as he already starts to fumble around to unbuckle his seat belt.

“Maybe you should suggest that to the housekeeping,” Brienne tells him, turning the steering wheel.

“Maybe I should, yeah,” Jaime sighs.

Though local plants will ultimately not change anything, he knows that. The fact that he doesn’t feel at home in this apartment reaches deeper than some interior design choices, Jaime is aware. Not that this means he has any solution to the problem, however.

_Though maybe there simply is no solution, but just yielding to circumstance and moving on with life._

The car comes to a halt.

“So… that’s it, I guess,” Brienne announces, frowning at herself as she is simultaneously filled with a feeling of relief and a strange kind of emptiness spreading in the pit of her stomach hot, then cold, then hot again.

“I can’t thank you enough for all services provided for your drunken-ass colleague,” Jaime says another time.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing to me,” he insists.

 _Just that it is because you don’t remember_ , Brienne has almost on the tip of her tongue, but is quick to swallow those words back down. After all, she plans to take that knowledge with her to her grave, if not further.

She parts her lips to say something, when suddenly, not her mouth but her stomach starts to speak, quite loudly so.

“Is it possible that you didn’t have anything to eat yourself while fixing up the Holy Toast?” Jaime asks, unable to hide the hint of a grin. To this day, one of the best things is Brienne’s utterly shocked, sheepish expression when she feels embarrassed, which makes teasing her ever the more of a thrill for Jaime.

Brienne opens and closes her mouth a few times, to tell Jaime that it’s nonsense and that _of course_ she ate something because she always does, but as her mind goes back through the motions Brienne can’t seem to recall having fixed up something for herself. No, she really forgot in the haste as she tried to distract herself from Jaime and the memories by wiping the kitchen table over and over again.

“I will eat something once I get back home,” Brienne tells him, feeling heat rise to her cheeks, which the young woman hopes will not develop into a blush, because she can’t have Jaime see that and tease her even more about it than his wicked grin already promises.

She just wants to get out of this situation, wants to get back home, lock the door and not open again until it’s Monday and she has sorted herself out, can put it away and never speak of it again, put it away in the box at the very end of her wardrobe to never touch again.

_Is that asked too damn much?_

“… Or I could partly repay debt and offer you some breakfast, as you keep refusing the marching band,” Jaime suggests, sounding far too cautious for a man who normally declares his decisions for all to hear and for all to live with because once Jaime made a choice, that much Brienne knows, it’s very hard to make him quit it. In that sense, he is more committed than most other people Brienne ever made the acquaintance of.

“You know, a Lannister always pays his…,” he wants to add, but Brienne cuts him off, “ _Don’t_ say it. And anyway, I already told you that it’s fine. It’s not like it will take me three hours to get back home. I think it’s safe to say that I won’t starve in the meantime.”

“But what if you collapse from the low blood sugar, crash your car, and end up in the hospital or the morgue?” Jaime ponders. “That would fall back on me, you know? Imagine the articles people would write about me. They could possibly be even worse than the whole Aerys affair.”

“That was not at all mediocre – and by the way, it is fascinating how you can make things about yourself all the time, even my own potential demise,” Brienne huffs, to which he argues, now sounding honest to the point that it’s almost hurtful for Brienne, “I am just saying. I would not feel safe for your sake if any harm came your way just because you gave me a lift.”

“You are making yourself utterly ridiculous right now, you _do_ realize? And that is coming from me after I witnessed you last night,” Brienne retorts.

And that is coming from her, knowing that he did the most ridiculous thing last night and kissed her before rolling over for sleep.

“I am just… apologizing, I guess,” Jaime tells her with a grimace, rolling his shoulders.

“ _Apologize_? Jaime, how often do I have to say it before you hear me? Don’t sweat it. It’s fine. Nothing happened. It was nothing. So why don’t we both now go our ways again and leave it at that?”

“I would sweat it less if there was something I could give back straight away, if not the marching band,” Jaime tells her stubbornly, noting all the while that this woman is way too much in denial for her statement to be perfectly true that nothing happened. There is something, but the wench is just too mulish to just tell him.

_Why does she always have to be so difficult when it comes to these things?_

Brienne groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Ugh.”

However, that is when Brienne’s stomach betrays her a second time and churns yet again – and if possible, even louder than before.

_Just why won’t this end already?!_

“I think your stomach tells you that I am right,” Jaime points out to her.

“I think that stomachs are no intelligent entities that have speech patterns,” Brienne retorts, her fingers curling tightly around the steering wheel.

Jaime rolls his eyes at her. “ _Ugh_.”

“Well, in any case, in order to make my stomach shut up, I should be on my way to get some food,” Brienne points out, just wanting to end all of it, just wanting it to be over and dealt with.

Because she would much rather like to think about her fancy new sword instead of wrecking her mind about what a drunken man did while being drugged _and_ drunk, which should not affect her as much as it apparently does.

“Fine, then have me lingering in the limbo of debt,” Jaime sighs as he opens the car door. “But just to say it once more, I am likely forever indebted to you for your hospitality and for playing chaperone. I make the solemn resolve to reform and never mix meds and margaritas.”

“It’s alright,” Brienne assures him as he gets out of the car. “… I suppose I will see you on Monday, then.”

By which time Brienne sincerely hopes that Jaime will have put all of that aside and will just continue his usual kind of banter so that she herself can ease back into their abnormal normalcy where a kiss that meant nothing actually means nothing.

“Will do,” Jaime says, tapping the flat of his hand before walking over to the entrance of the building. Inside his mind, he already ponders whether to bug the housekeeping about local plants just to get rid of some of his frustration or kick around some of his unpacked boxes inside his apartment to the same result.

However, he stops dead in his tracks when he hears a loud gurgling sound ringing out behind him, followed by a metallic, bellowed cough, then total silence, and then the most strangest sound ever as he can hear Brienne of Tarth, the epitome of honor and good tone most of her days, yell at the top of her lungs, “FUCK!”

Jaime turns around to see his colleague almost jump out of the car to get to the front and lift the lid, white smoke coming out of it rapidly all of a sudden. For a moment, he watches in sheer fascination as Brienne reaches into the motor compartment, seemingly knowing her way around, and inspecting the damage with methodological precision. And in fact, the fascination seems to increase tenfold when Jaime notices how she leans over the machine, not aware just how much of long, bare leg she thereby exposes in her shorts, or how her loose shirt reveals even more delicate, freckled, muscular skin.

With a sharp intake of air, Jaime tries to calm himself. The shots still seem to get to his head. He certainly noticed a number of times before that there are certain attributes about Brienne’s otherwise rather ungainly body. In fact, Jaime found himself looking far too long when Brienne bent over to pick up folders from the floor or what not. In fact, more often than not he found his mouth watering and a hot tingling spreading throughout his body. Yet, Jaime is painfully aware that this is not the occasion, even less so after all that just happened the night before.

Therefore, he tries to focus on her hands and how Brienne tries to bring order back to the chaos of the engine compartment, the way she always strives towards bringing order to the chaos as Brienne of Tarth does not seem to handle chaos well.

However, no matter her methodological approach, her precise, knowing movements are soon succeeded by Brienne, without further prelude, kicking against the side of the car, her face pulled into an angry snarl.

It is only then that she takes notice of the fact that Jaime is still standing by the entrance, keychain in hand, looking like someone who just got caught with the hands in the cookie jar for reasons beyond her.

“Seems like you will have to take my offer after all,” Jaime calls out at last. “It doesn’t seem to me that the car will move any time soon, will it?”

“The coolant reservoir’s tube has a leak, so it overheats. I think I will just let it cool down and call the AA,” Brienne answers as she closes the lid of the car again. “It’s fine, though. I will just… wait outside.”

Because outside means in the safety of the parking lot where she does not have to think about being in a closed-in space with Jaime after her thoughts keep dancing smaller and smaller circles around her head, taunting her with images of that nothing-kiss that bothers her so much that Brienne starts to wonder whether it was really absolutely nothing as it should have been, as it must be to Jaime, even if he were to know.

At that comment, Jaime decides that he has enough and makes his way back to the tall, blonde woman, who just stares at him in utter confusion until he grabs her by the wrist and starts to pull her towards the entrance.

“What do you think you are doing?” Brienne demands to know, cold fear clutching at her as she wants to get out of here, wants to get back home, to her apartment, where she is safe to ponder those irritating questions she doesn’t want to think about while Jaime can watch her, because the man is far too good at reading her.

“Not letting my colleague spend hours in the parking lot, waiting for the AA we all know always comes late, especially on weekends, because while I may be a dick, I am not that kind of a dick,” Jaime declares. “So now, you are coming with me. You can make those calls from inside where there is air conditioning, water for you to wash your hands, and in all likability also something to eat.”

“I _said_ …,” Brienne tries, but Jaime won’t let her, “And I _heard_ you, but I have a better alternative, so now come and stop being a mulish wench yet again.”

“And I don’t have a say in that?” she asks.

“Not really,” is the reply she receives, much to Brienne’s irritation and frustration.

“Forced hospitality?” the tall woman snorts.

“ _Something_ like that.”

Jaime just keeps going, his fingers still curled around her wrist, determined to get her to the elevator before the woman can make an attempt to flee.

Brienne, by contrast, only ever has her heart pounding outside her chest as her eyes remain fixed on Jaime’s hand wrapped around her wrist, not letting go, pulling her along, into the kind of situation she would rather not have at all. In fact, Brienne would rather spend the entire day at the parking lot than suffering through any more of this. She has had enough. Brienne has had enough of Jaime, of his comments about her being a strange kind of saint, and she has had enough about the feeling in her gut that makes her feel light and heavy at the same time to the point that she wants to throw up just to get over with it, with this feeling, with all of it.

Brienne just can’t can stand the thought to be around Jaime for much longer as she fears she will expose that which she tries to hide away so desperately if he is given just a bit more time to keep prodding at her with questions she doesn’t know how to dodge the way he can.

She doesn’t want to have to deal with this, with any of that. Brienne would much rather be back in the safety of her own apartment, all by herself, shut all doors and windows, let the AC make it so cool that she would feel nothing but goosebumps from the cold, watch her favorite TV show on endless loop, and be happy about the sword she just got in the auction. If only to distract herself from the images of last night, or last night altogether. If only to forget. If only to move on and return to normal, their strange kind of normal where private is private and office is office and no one interferes with anyone.

However, Jaime won’t let go, he won’t relent, won’t give up, because once Jaime Lannister made up his mind, he did and he will follow through with it, Brienne knows far, far too well.

The young woman thus wordlessly observes as Jaime drags her down the corridor leading further to the back and press the button so forcefully that she believes for a moment Jaime will push it all the way in and break it in the process. Only then does it seem to dawn on Jaime that he still holds on to her arm, which has him momentarily wonder how that feels both odd and familiar at the same time.  

“Will you run away if I let go now?” he asks quieter now, only to add with an uncertain smile, “And hide in the parking lot? Because I will say that I would find it quite a sight to have you try to hide behind cars all the while.”

“Do you think I would answer that with a ‘yes’?” Brienne scoffs, her eyes and mind still transfixed on the fact that he has a grip on her that is both strong and yet so very gentle. Even stranger so, with a kind of touch that seems perfectly out of place and yet… as though it belonged.

Jaime lets go of her hand, then, exhaling a shuddered breath to calm himself. “This got more _heated_ than I wanted it to be, and by that I don’t mean your smoking car… I just… I don’t know. I feel bad about all this and I really wouldn’t want to be the kind of guy to leave his colleague in the parking lot, can we agree on that?”

“Sure,” Brienne answers curtly, averting her gaze.

Normally, she would appreciate that trait in Jaime that most people wouldn’t ever know about because the Kingslayer stigma is strong for him and thus precedes almost any interaction with other people, Brienne knows. Because against all odds, Jaime is actually a much more decent guy than Brienne ever gave him credit for when they first met. And while that doesn’t mean he is polite or friendly with just anyone, Jaime has a moral codex and he follows it till the bitter end.

That was always something she appreciated about Jaime once she discovered it. It is a kind of consistency that a lot of people lack, which Brienne always found to be a pity. Even more so as she has her sad private history of not seeing through it when people obviously had other intentions than the ones she thought when she accepted some guys’ hands at a school dance.

The elevator door opens with a soft bing-sound and Brienne finds herself moving into the admittedly rather spacious cubicle without much hesitation, much to her own surprise. After all, her mind is still yelling at her to turn around and maybe give the car another kick to bring it back to life.

As the lift sets into motion, Brienne starts to focus her attention back on her phone. That is a more than welcome distraction and a means to bypass any uncomfortable conversations after all. Brienne keeps her eyes almost glued to the small screen as she goes through the numbers to find the right one in question.

“So you don’t know that number by heart?” he jokes.

“Apparently, I don’t have to call them up that often,” Brienne huffs, rolling her eyes, though she can’t help the hint of a smile.

“Yeah, it seemed to me that you know a thing or two about cars. Though you never told me about that,” Jaime comments.

She shrugs. “Because you never asked?”

“Then I am asking now,” he tells her.

Brienne’s eyes still transfixed on the screen, she answers while chewing on her lower lip, “A friend of my father’s, Goodwin, part-time ran a small car repair shop not too far from Evenfall Hall. When I came out of school early, I would hang out there with him and fix up the cars every once in a while.”

Back in the day, it gave Brienne a kind of security she found herself lacking by the time, because she had not yet discovered the merits of doing boxing and other combat sports. She was always an object of ridicule for matters of her looks, and it was nothing she could fix. Make-up never made her look any prettier. Longer hair didn’t make her look girly. And thanks to her height, she could never confuse someone into the false belief that she was sweet or small if she had bothered to try. Cars, however? She learned to fix those, and that proved to be almost healing for Brienne as it was something she could affect in contrast to her ugly looks.

Yet, right on this day, even those powers seem to betray her as Brienne failed to fix the car and drive back home to lock herself in and maintain the order she is so desperate to hold on to.

“When I got out of school early, I was instantly up for playing sports of any kind. Soccer. Football. Whatever team sport there was. Maybe I should have used that time more wisely to learn how to fix cars. It seems more practical than knowing how to kick a ball in someone’s nuts,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“Well, you might be able to imagine that I was not particularly popular, so it made sense that I stuck around Goodwin rather than kids my age,” Brienne comments, only to bite her tongue. Because those are the kinds of things she doesn’t mean to share with anyone, even less so with a guy she knows can make a slight out of any information.

“I bet the guys were just scared you’d beat them all in whatever sport there was,” Jaime snorts, hugging his chest as he leans against the lift’s wall.

“I tend to think they just didn’t want to be around a girl as mannish as me. That seemed to confuse a lot of them,” Brienne answers, adding thoughtfully, “… still tends to confuse a lot of people.”

“Because a lot of people are assholes,” Jaime tells her simply.

“You mistook me for a guy first time we met,” she points out to him, all the while making sure to keep her eyes on the phone, her thumb already hovering over the number for the AA.

Which should remind her body that the sudden heart flutter is really out of place. This is still Jaime Lannister, the same guy who hides away her office items for no particular reason, the guy who always makes Brienne roll her eyes to the point that she gets dizzy.

_And he is also one of the few guys who makes me laugh and laughs with me rather than about me…_

“You had your back to me and you did not speak. And I corrected myself once I knew, didn’t I?” Jaime argues.

“You did indeed,” Brienne sighs, adding, “after joking about it for a solid minute.”

“It was a funny first encounter,” Jaime insists.

Brienne didn’t talk with him more than was absolutely necessary after that, no matter his attempts to break her out of her shell. Only once he introduced “wench” into the game did she start yelling at him and ever since then, the two have been fighting as though it was their one mode of communication.

And Jaime must say, there is something strangely comforting about it, a kind of continuity he finds himself lacking outside the office far too often. But with Brienne, there are familiar structures, familiar patterns.

“For you, maybe,” Brienne huffs. “Anyway, I will call the AA now.”

“If they try to tell you that they can’t make it, remind them that you are with Jaime Lannister. My name supposedly scares people,” Jaime tells her.

Brienne frowns. “Even the AA?”

“Can’t harm to try,” Jaime chuckles, but then Brienne gets through and instantly starts to take the man on the other end of the line through the car problem. Jaime only ever wonders right at this moment whether he would feel more at home in his apartment if he bothered inviting people over who are not Tyrion or the rest of the family clan. People he actually likes only, of course, which is a far lower number than most will estimate, but maybe Brienne would be far less opposed to coming up to his apartment if he actually invited her over for beer and watching a game.

_Or something equally mundane._

“… They say they won’t be here for another hour, though they suggested that the car may start again once it’s cooled down,” Brienne informs him. “I am supposed to call them up in an hour after I tried another time to start the car. They gave me instructions on what to look out for.”

“You didn’t mention my name,” Jaime points out to her with a grin.

“I don’t need your name to help me. They were reasonable enough with their suggestion,” Brienne argues.

The bing of the door opening ends their conversation abruptly. They proceed towards Jaime’s apartment quietly. Brienne can’t help but frown when she sees that there are apparently three locks on Jaime’s door which he opens with the keychain he got from Tyrion. Jaime tends to downplay the events of when he walked in on the guy who vandalized his apartment, but this reminds her that being a Lannister is truly not easy, just like she can’t help but think that if anything of what Jaime babbled about was true, then it surely is about not feeling at home here.

While Jaime would certainly never admit to it because he rather keeps thoughts and emotions hidden behind a thin veil of snarky comments and easy smiles, it must have affected him and likely still does to this day.

“Welcome to… the _apartment_ ,” Jaime announces in a dramatic manner once he opens the door for Brienne to go in first. The young woman cocks an eyebrow at him, but then walks in anyway.

She instantly spots a good dozen of unpacked boxes somewhat disrupting the fancy, minimalistic interior design, which makes it indeed look like he only ever moved in yesterday.

“You know, sometimes I think it’s better to keep things in the boxes so that future vandalizers and burglars will have a harder time finding the cash and the good china,” Jaime comments as he closes the door and makes sure all locks are back in place, a routine he has grown accustomed to more than the apartment itself.

“Whatever works best for you, I suppose,” Brienne mutters, looking around, feeling rather lost for a moment, but that is when Jaime is already by her side and Brienne just follows him wordlessly, no longer feeling that much out of place for some strange reason.

“Well, you can wash your hands over there if you want. I guess even your car isn’t all squeaky clean from the inside, in contrast to your office desk,” Jaime says as he walks her into the open kitchen, pointing at the sink there.

“Not everyone can grow living things on a desk like some other colleagues,” Brienne says as she starts the water, thankful to get the black grime off of her hands, which, she will have to admit, she couldn’t have done if she had followed through with her own suggestion of staying in the parking lot.

 _But it’s just one hour. I just have to make it for one hour, then I can find a good excuse to either stay in the parking lot to wait for the AA or drive home_ , Brienne reminds herself, in fact, tries to encourage herself. Because the more she takes in the entire situation the more frightened Brienne becomes that she will expose a nothing as a something when it should mean absolutely nothing to either one.

Sadly, her stomach did not yet get that message, though, as it keeps turning upside-down, and not just from the anger but the sheer anxiety of exposing too much and thereby losing control over the little bit of simplicity Brienne thought she found a way to protect from the madness of the world.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I have seen things on those tables that no one should ever see,” Jaime grunts. “And that includes most definitely the used condoms on my brother’s desk… alongside my brother’s naked ass on that table while his secretary was giving him head.”

Brienne swallows thickly, furrowing her eyebrows. “Did you have to tell me that?”

“If I have to suffer through seeing that, you can just as well suffer through listening me recount it. I wanted to bleach my eyes out,” Jaime huffs as he opens the fridge to see what he has to make a passable enough _sorry-for-screwing-up-your-evening-by-being-a-drunk-ass-colleague-breakfast_.

“And now I want to bleach my ears out,” Brienne retorts.

“Well, office sex is supposed to be fun. Tyrion swears by it,” Jaime comments.

“He would likely swear by all of it so long it involves… _intimate encounters_.”

Jaime shakes his head as he straightens back up and leans his forearm on the fridge’s door. “It will never fail to make me laugh that you can’t even seem to say the word ‘sex’ without blushing like a teenage girl.”

In fact, Jaime finds that more endearing than he ever believed possible, but time and time again he had to realize how ridiculously it made him smile to see her blush like that at the mere mention of anything related to sex.

“Laugh it up all you want, Lannister. Some people just value their privacy in contrast to others,” Brienne points out to him, straightening up her back.

Jaime nods his head. “Oh, count me in on the privacy part.”

“You tell me all those things I don’t want to know. So I am not sure how much you value privacy of that kind, really,” Brienne points out to him.

“Because I know that you will keep all of my dirty little secrets.” He shrugs.

“So what?” Brienne asks with a frown. “I am just your personal trash can where you can unload all that stuff you don’t want to bother yourself with, do I get that right?”

“No, it’s more like… I trust you not to tell anyone else,” he explains, surprising himself with the apparent honesty that statement comes with.

Because it is that simple, actually. Jaime doesn’t trust easily. It’s something that seems to come naturally with the job. And it has most definitely been increasingly difficult for him to trust not just people but also situations ever since that guy broke into his home to trash his apartment. However, with Brienne, he never had trust issues of that sort. He feels like he can tell her anything, and while Brienne will reserve the right to comment and tell him when she finds his actions wrong, Jaime knows he can rely on her not to tell anyone.

Brienne says nothing at that, just lets the cool water wash over her hands to soothe some of the uncomfortable heat out of her body that just keeps rising within her, even more so at that sentence as Brienne is someone who believes that trust is something of true importance, is actually rather underrated these days though it shouldn’t be. Therefore, to hear Jaime say it that he trusts her means more to Brienne than she would like to admit, even more so as she tries her best to not tell him something, not to trust him with that part in turn.

“… Anyway. The fridge revealed orange juice and bagels. I was sure I had more in here, but then again… I am still hungover, so I partly blame that condition for not knowing what is in my kitchen stock,” Jaime announces with a grimace.

_So much to some decent breakfast to repay some of the debt._

Though Brienne seems little concerned with that as the only question she has is, “Why do you have bagels in your _fridge_?”

“Why not?” Jaime frowns at her incredulously.

“Do you even know how to run a household? Baked goods like bread don’t go into the fridge or else they get moldy even faster,” Brienne points out to him.

“Well, my bagels are not moldy and they are super fresh because they are nicely cooled for the summer season. Sometimes you gotta take the risk, wench.”

She scoffs, “I don’t think wasting food is that much of a risk as it is stupid.”

“You take the fun out of everything.” Jaime rolls his eyes.

“No news there, huh?” Brienne huffs.

“True again,” Jaime sighs as he puts a glass of orange juice and a plate with buttered bagel.

“Thanks.”

“Surely not as good as holy toast, but with a side of orange juice,” Jaime tells her with a wink.

Brienne shakes her head as she takes a sip before taking a bite from the bagel, if only to make sure that her stomach will finally shut up to not cause her further embarrassment. And she sincerely hopes that it will also, at least partly, undo some of the knots she feels in her stomach ever since she woke up to the reality that this nothing-kiss happened and that it still feels like not-nothing to her against better judgment.

Jaime smirks as he helps himself to some orange juice as well, though he can’t help but note that it feels strangely nice to have someone in the apartment at last who is not family and not someone he completely despises.

“You know, maybe I should host a party here sometime soon,” he thinks out loud.

Brienne grimaces at him as she takes a bite from the bagel. “You seriously think about parties after what just happened last night?”

“Well, not a _shot-shot-shot-shot-shot_ kind of party. More like… beers and champagne only. Everyone keeps his pants on in the public room. Music. Snacks. You know, the usual without the escalation bits we just had last night,” Jaime explains, rolling his wrist roughly in her direction.

“No one is going to keep you from hosting a party,” Brienne says, gulping down more of the orange juice.

“True, but then again… most people at the office suck, so why would I invite them over?” Jaime huffs.

“I bet you have other people to invite than those people from the office whom you don’t like at all,” Brienne comments, taking another sip from the orange juice.

Jaime walks over to the couch table. “I don’t know, I could use more company other than my brother. Tyrion means nothing but trouble these days. That Daenerys Targaryen person put nothing but rebellious thoughts in his little, wicked head. He was more fun being around with before that trip to Essos.”

“Well, you don’t have issue making friends, so… just no family or colleagues. Should be easy enough,” Brienne answers.

Jaime looks at her. “What makes you think that I have no trouble making friends?”

“You are a people-person?” she replies, rolling her broad shoulders.

“I am _not_. I don’t like… _most_ people I know.”

“They don’t seem to know that,” the young woman argues, taking another sip.

No, Brienne has observed Jaime often enough, charming his way in and out of every situation, every conversation. He has a way about people that she partly envied and appreciated him for because Jaime talked the both of them out of some meetings they really just wanted to get out. However, that let her believe that for Jaime, making friends should not be issue. In general, she was always of the opinion that rich, good-looking boys at school already had it easy enough making friends, whereas she mostly kept by herself.

And time has taught Brienne that social life, more often than not, functions more like high school than most adults would want to admit.

“Because that is my _job_. I don’t have to have them aware of the circumstance that I can’t stand them. Or do you really think that I have any love to give for _holier-than-thou_ Ned Stark or _kiss-my-khaleesi-ass_ Daenerys Targaryen and her conquest of the market or you name it? This is for the job alone,” Jaime tells her.

“So you are… not a people-person,” Brienne concludes, still letting that sink in along with a chunk of buttered bagel.

“Not at all, not at all. I just know how to charm my way around most of them to leave them unaware of that circumstance. Or do you really think that if I was such a person I would consider my little brother one of the few friends I actually have?” Jaime points out to her.

“… I never knew that this is what you thought,” Brienne admits.

“Well, as you like to point out so very often, people don’t normally ask,” Jaime says, unable to keep the edge of bitterness of out his voice.

Because it is pathetic if you think about it, and Jaime would rather not consider himself pathetic. That doesn’t swing well with his ego.

Jaime tilts his head to the side as his eyes fix on the smartphone sitting on his dark, wooden couch table. He bends down slowly, to make sure to bypass further vertigo as Jaime does not want to throw up if he can help it. With a frown, he brings the phone back up to look at the screen.

“How many phones do you have?” Brienne asks with a deep frown.

Jaime scratches the back of his head with his free hand. “Three… I think. One for business, one for private, and one for private business… or was there another? _Gods_ , my brain is having its dear fun at my expenses over and over again today.”

“So you have that many phones but can’t recall a single phone number by heart?” Brienne questions.

“What do I have my many phones for?” Jaime huffs before looking at the screen again, swiping his thumb across it swiftly to direct to the apps in question. “Oh fuck.”

“What is it?” she asks, frowning.

“I realized I just lost the race,” he answers, still staring at the screen.

_And that is why I told Tyrion that I didn’t want to go. I wanted to spend my miserable time making it a little less miserable by finding a nice asset for my collection, but no, even that I can’t seem to have because life just hates me as of late._

Brienne furrows her eyebrows at him. “What race?”

Jaime looks back up from his device. “Hm? Oh, I was bidding in an online auction, but since my brother took me out for _shot-shot-shot-shot-shots_ , I missed the last deadline set five minutes before midnight and could not raise prices till last as I had it planned. Fuck! That would have been such a nice asset for my collection.”

Because that collection is apparently one of the few things Jaime gives a damn on in this new apartment which he others can’t bring himself to care about much, if at all. In fact, his collection is one of the few constants Jaime found in his otherwise not nearly as stable lifestyle as a boring business job at the family’s company would normally promise to hold.

“… Did you… did you bid on a Valyrian steel sword by any chance?” Brienne asks, which has Jaime turn on the heel, if only to sway a moment there, though he catches himself this time much swifter than last night.

“How would you know that?” he asks, to which Brienne only ever shrugs her broad shoulders at him. “I was the one you bid against, I think.”

“No way.” Jaime gapes at her.

“ _Way_ ,” Brienne affirms, showing him her phone with the notification that named her winner of the auction, though the tall woman was not nearly as joyful as she thought she would be as she had to spend the morning worrying about her runaway colleague, then her rundown car, and now the fact that she is in her colleague’s apartment after he kissed her last night and can’t seem to recall anything regarding the matter.

“So that was you all this time? I had absolutely no clue,” Jaime mutters, brushing his fingers through his hair as he looks back at his own phone. “Well, I guess the pseud _BlueIsle280_ may have been a hint if I had just thought about it.”

“I had no clue either. I already wondered why the person suddenly stopped bidding,” Brienne answers. “And I will also add that _GoldenKnight266_ was a similarly big hint.”

“Well, the other bidder was apparently out drunk on your couch and thus out of service,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“Apparently.”

“Well, you can consider that part of the debt paid, then. I mean, I just basically gave the sword over to you. Valyrian steel no less,” Jaime comments as he stuffs the phone away.

“You did _not_ ,” Brienne insists. “You stopped bidding. That is no accomplishment on your side.”

“But you have a fancy sword now thanks to my inaction,” Jaime argues with his typical playful kind of grin, easing back into the mood, back into the one thing that continues to be normal around him, is in fact the one constant thing in his life. And Jaime finds himself almost praying – but just almost – that the Gods will not take that bit away from him, too, by having Brienne unable to look him in the eye after she had to host him dead drunk and stupid for an entire night.

“Will you take credit for anything, even the things you don’t do?” Brienne scoffs.

He shrugs. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because that is untrue.”

“Not in my book.”

She grunts. “Ugh.”

“You love it to argue with me like that,” Jaime chuckles softly.

“No, most definitely not. _Not in my book_ ,” Brienne retorts, looking back at her phone pensively. “Though I will say that I am surprised that you are into swords.”

“You are really surprised? I even have a sword-shaped letter opener. I have a miniature sword collection lined up at the front of my desk,” Jaime points out to her.

“That… is true, actually,” Brienne ponders. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean you collect actual swords.”

“So that means we have been fighting the _Battle of the Bids_ for how long now without realizing that it was us on the other end of the line?” Jaime asks, still trying to wrap his mind around it that he has more in common with his colleague than he already thought they did anyway, against the odds that they constantly clash over much of anything and are regarded as two people who couldn’t be more opposing to each other in terms of looks and morals. But once you dig deeper, it seems that there is much more to connect them than parting them.

Even if it’s just a fable for antique swords.

Brienne shrugs. “Seemingly.”

“This day is filled with revelations I was not at all expecting,” Jaime says, shaking his head.

“Which is why I think we would do best not making any more revelations. Your still hungover head does not seem to appreciate the input overload,” Brienne says, quick to retreat into her defensive mode, but to her great shock, that seems to have been just the wrong choice as Jaime looks at her with the kind of intensity she can’t have right now as Brienne fears it will pierce right through her.

“What is it that you are not telling me, wench?” Jaime wants to know.

In fact, he starts to think that he has to know.

Because he needs their madness to stay intact.

He can’t have some stupid thing he did while dead drunk annihilate what could possibly be the one good thing in his life as of late.

“I am not… not telling you anything,” Brienne says, wincing to herself at how wrong that sounded.

“Wow, you suck at lying, didn’t I ever tell you?”

“About thrice a day for the past years we have been working together.”

“And yet you didn’t learn the lesson,” Jaime huffs. “And here I thought _I_ was the slow learner.”

“There is nothing to be discussed anymore,” Brienne deflects. “I think I have done my duty to the point that you should grant me not to have suffer through you constantly teasing me about some nonsense. After all, a Lannister always pays his debts, no?”

“Look, if I said something last night that crossed you…,” Jaime means to say, but Brienne is quick to interrupt him, “You said some many things last night, but that’s not the matter.”

No, it’s what he did but likely didn’t mean.

It’s about what he did and what that may mean or not mean in turn.

It’s about the chaos within her that Brienne doesn’t know how to control.

“I just have the feeling that you are holding something back and I don’t want that to stand between us. You are the only one at the office I bother talking to, and I wouldn’t want to have you to kill me with your big blue eyes whenever I dare come to the company now,” Jaime argues. “So… what did I do that has you act that way?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

Brienne shakes her head. “I won’t have that conversation.”

“So there _is_ something that happened that you won’t have conversation about.”

“No.”

“Something _totally_ happened or else you wouldn’t react that way. I know you, wench, better than most,” Jaime points out to her.

 _Which is sad enough to admit that it’s true_ , Brienne thinks to herself. Because Jaime is right. He is one of the few people who know her beyond the level of casual waves at the office or eating at the same table in the cafeteria.

“Well, on that you are wrong,” she tells him.

“I am not,” he huffs, growing surer of the fact with every second passing. And while Jaime doesn’t know to where he is headed with this, he feels determined to see what is at the end of that road.

“It meant _nothing_ ,” Brienne grounds out.

“ _What_ meant nothing? Why don’t you let me be judge of that?” Jaime argues.

And that is when something inside Brienne simply snaps, breaks out of the limbo of nothing-or-something, out of the chaos into the neat if still scattered with unpacked boxes apartment of her colleague.

“You kissed me.”

Jaime gapes at her in utter shock. “I _what_?”

“Kissed me. On the lips. There. I have said it. Happy now? A goodnight kiss, I assume. It was nothing, really, but that was the thing that you keep pushing for and I am sick and tired of dodging the topic. Our lips met. End of the deal. And now I am out of here to see after the car,” Brienne declares, already meaning to dash towards the door, but Jaime stops her, calling out, “Wait, wait, wait!”

“No!” Brienne curses.

She has had enough, she simply has had enough. She just want to get out of here, wants to forget it all, wants to return to the old order. Because all of this here has her ask herself all those uncomfortable questions about whether this was something to her after all, which inevitably leads to the sickening thought that it was nothing to Jaime in turn.

Because she had that plentifully enough before, and Brienne does not need revisiting.

_It has to be nothing. It is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing._

“I am just trying to apologize for, well, forcing myself upon you in that way, then. Man, was I out of it last night,” Jaime insists.

Brienne can’t help but blink at him, because against the odds that Jaime has no trouble making lewd comments at her all the time, here he shows yet again that Jaime Lannister is actually a man of the old school who can be polite and apologize sincerely.

And while that is something she appreciates about him so very much, Brienne also wants to punch Jaime for it right now because that just makes her think back to the kiss and has her think that maybe it wasn’t nothing after all, to her at least. Why else would it bother her so?

“To try and kiss me? Yeah, definitely out of it, a lot,” she manages to say with a forced grimace.

“No, I mean… for doing that without proper… I will now not use the word ‘foreplay’ but that is the only word I come up with right now because my brain is just not functioning right… further prelude, that’s it! But that’s not the matter. The point is that while I like to make my comments, I wouldn’t ever do something like that without being sure that you are okay with that.”

Brienne’s frown impossibly deepens, just like Jaime’s grimace seems to only become graver.

Are they really having this conversation all of a sudden? Because by the time they left the office, either one would have taken any bet that of all talks those two could potentially have, this would be none of them.

Yet, here they stand in an apartment that is not yet a home, having a conversation about the impossible.

“Seven Hells, why didn’t you just say it? No wonder that you… Damn all this. Just why did I let Tyrion convince me of my good plans of moping in the comfort of my own apartment?” Jaime says, fisting his her with his free hand while turning on the back of the heel to somehow contain his own frustration.

Because now that this revelation is out in the open, he can’t imagine that he will ever walk back from that. Brienne will likely not want to have to do with him at the office ever again, let alone come over to make this place feel less like a desolation and more like a home, like she managed by just sitting there and drinking orange juice.

“I thought that if you don’t remember, I should just join the club. I just don’t want this to make things awkward at the office… or between us in general, you see,” Brienne explains, chewing on her lower lip nervously.

She wants order back. She wants rules back, to stick to, to live by, so that she can sort this limbo out rather than finding herself collapse into it over and over again.

“Well, that plan’s over now,” Jaime comments, his throat going dry.

“Seemingly… but… it doesn’t have to be. Look, I get it. You were drunk. In that state, people do crazy things. You proved that plentifully before you pressed your lips to mine. So maybe we’d do best just filing it under things you did while dead drunk and under the influence of medication and leave it at that,” Brienne tries to reason, not just with Jaime but also herself and her upset stomach and her even more skittish mind.

“You hardly forget anything, including phone numbers. And now you are trying to tell me that you can just erase that from your memory?” Jaime points out to her.

Brienne pinches the bridge of her nose. “Well, maybe I just need to get some _shot-shot-shot-shots_ myself.”

“I cannot recommend that procedure,” Jaime huffs, gesturing at himself.

“Neither can I,” Brienne snorts. “But it makes no difference anyway. I mean, it’s not like you meant for that kiss. It meant nothing. You were probably thinking about anything but me, let’s be real, so we would really do best just putting it away for good.”

“… But what if I meant that kiss?”

“You don’t even remember that kiss, Jaime,” Brienne reminds him.

“But I can remember this,” Jaime then says, before grabbing her wrist to pull her to him, and Brienne, against those many, many odds swimming around before her eyes, finds herself following the movement, following him.

And in fact, it does not feel like nothing, it feels like everything at once, hot, cold, fast, slow, incredibly close while so far out of the world that should make up their normalcy, but this kiss seems to break it all apart, makes it shatter like glass.

Much in contrast to yesterday, Brienne sinks into the movements and finds herself pulling Jaime even more forcefully to his lips because yes, that man, for all his fallacies, knows her better than most and may be the snarkiest and yet most chivalrous guy she came across in a long, long time, if not ever.

When they pull apart, the two keep their eyes locked on each other, chests heaving, cheeks flushed, shock and relief washing over them in waves.

“Yeah, I will definitely remember that one,” Jaime says, his lips curling into a smirk.

“Me, too,” Brienne replies breathlessly.

“So I am not getting slapped for this?” he asks.

Brienne shakes her head. “Not this time, no.”

“Good, because I would rather continue this instead,” Jaime says, pulling her to himself by hooking his arm around the hollow of her spine, because all of this feels so right and strangely familiar that Jaime forgets all about the fact that this place does not feel like home, because it suddenly does.

It does because she is there.

Which is why office felt like home to him ever since he was forced to move.

Because Jaime knows that Brienne will be there in the morning.

“And what tells you that I would want that?” Brienne scoffs.

“Because I bet you are _aching_ to see my sword collection,” Jaime says, cocking a suggestive eyebrow at her.

“You did not just say that,” she grunts.

“I absolutely did,” he laughs.

Brienne rolls her eyes. “You are incorrigible.”

“We long since knew that.” He shrugs.

“In fact, you are the one who always brings chaos to my life,” Brienne sighs, though she can’t help but think to herself how little chaotic it feels to her to have his arm wrapped around her, how strangely protected it makes her feel, as though she belonged there as well, as though it was her place to be.

“Well, sometimes chaos is what brings order,” Jaime points out to her.

“And sometimes it just brings more chaos,” Brienne argues.

Because this is most certainly chaos. There is no other way to describe it.

“I think you can use a bit more of that,” Jaime chuckles. “You handled yourself quite well last night – and we can both agree that this was pure chaos. You can be the calm to my storm.”

“That sounded all kinds of awful.”

“I found it quite witty.”

“You always think that.”

“You do know me well, Brienne.”

They stand like that a few moments longer, both bound to admit that it doesn’t feel nearly as strange as it likely should that they stand that close, that Jaime’s arm is still wrapped around her.

And Brienne in particular still tries to wrap her head around the circumstance that she is here now and all those nothing-something thoughts seem to fade away the more she feels his warmth against her back, her front, seeping into her, reassuring her.

But her mind won’t obey just yet because this has to be impossible. This is simply out of the world, isn’t it?

“So… you are seriously into me? Do I have that right?” she asks.

“Well, not yet,” he snickers, rewarding Brienne with another dirty grin.

“Jaime,” she sighs, putting urgency into her voice so that he understands that she means it, that this is serious.

And in fact it is.

“You really think I would have kissed you just now if I wasn’t?” he tells her.

Brienne shrugs. “Stranger things have happened last night.”

“I wouldn’t have, rest assured. I am a devoted kind of man. And now it seems that I am devoted to you. So you will have to live with the consequences of that,” Jaime warns her.

“Which are?” she asks, finding herself so very unafraid at the prospect that it seems to provide the answer to get out of the abyss all on her own.

It is something.

It is not nothing.

And it is this something she holds on to and lets herself being held on to by him.

“Oh, we can figure out the finesses and conditions of the treaty once we have taken our time exploring the possibilities,” Jaime says, giving her a suggestive, dirty kind of grin that has Brienne simultaneously roll her eyes and cheeks blush a deep shade of pink.

“Office sexy talk?” she snorts.

“It is what united us, isn’t it, my lady?” Jaime chuckles.

“ _My lady_ , really?”

Jaime shrugs. “I can also stick to wench?”

“Then I rather take the lady part,” Brienne huffs.

“As do I, wench,” he laughs darkly, giving her body another light tug closer to himself, because this feels like home already.

“Ugh.”

“So does that mean we get shared custody over the sword?” Jaime asks.

“No, that one is definitely going to my collection,” Brienne huffs.

“Do I get visiting rights?”

“Depends.”

“On what?” he asks.

“How you behave yourself from now on,” Brienne answers.

“Oh, I think you don’t want me to behave myself at all,” Jaime snickers, drawing her closer to himself, letting his fingers slowly, carefully trace down her side, which has Brienne shudder against his touch to the point that it has Jaime go mad right on the spot. “I think you want me to be chaotic.”

“Chaotic does not mean ill-mannered,” Brienne argues, trying her best to sound stoic, but her breath remains hitched as Jaime continues his little game, already far too sure about his advantage in it to her liking.

After all, their constant seems to be to fight, and Brienne is not willing to yield just yet.

“Well, I can very well show you how good I can behave myself. On the couch. In bed. Under the shower…,” Jaime goes on with the most ridiculous grin on his lips.

“I don’t think so.”

“What? _Really_?” he moans.

“We kissed two times by now. Do you really think I am that easy to have?” she snorts.

“Oh, I know for a fact that it’s always a battle with you. But as I have told you several times already, I am strong enough. And think about it, Brienne, we have the entire weekend to get to know each other… in the most intimate ways,” he tells her suggestively.

“It will most certainly wait until I have confirmation that my car works again,” Brienne points out to him, crossing her arms over her flat chest, though Jaime won’t let go of her, no matter the defensive gesture. And Brienne makes no move whatsoever to break free from that touch despite her gesture.

Jaime smirks. “But you don’t need the car until Monday. In fact you don’t need the car at all. I can drive you to work.”

“I need to get back to my apartment to get my office clothes,” Brienne argues, wondering all the while how it can be that such conversation already sounds so natural, when in fact it is clearly not.

“Or we could call in sick and…,” Jaime tries to say, but Brienne won’t let him finish, “Not happening.”

“Spoilsport,” he grumbles, only to flat-out pout when Brienne takes a step back to break up the embrace.

“I think I will finish breakfast now, and after that see after the car,” she announces.

“ _Really_?” Jaime laments, trotting after her.

“ _Really_. And hey, you are free to join me so that you can learn a thing or two about fixing up cars,” Brienne says as she sits down on the bar stool again to resume her breakfast.

“I suppose I can live with that,” Jaime chuckles, leaning in a little closer so that his lip brushes against her earlobe briefly. “I quite enjoyed the sight of you leaning over the car before. Your long legs have me go mad about as much as your big blue eyes.”

Brienne’s eyes widen at that, at which Jaime only ever laughs.

Because this feels good.

It feels right.

It feels like coming home.

“I think I could get used to that, you know,” he chimes, suddenly no longer feeling so estranged from this place because she is now in it, with him, right before him, up for a fight, as always.

“I suppose it may be worth the risk to try it out.”

“And all that it entails?”

“I think we will call a truce on it until we have figured it out.”

“Sounds good to me.”

And at last, he is at home.

And at last, she finds herself in a new home, too, one she doesn't yet know, but one that contains the one man who knows her and who trusts her in turn.

And that, it seems, is good enough for a start.


	4. Epilog - Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne enjoy their new normalcy, only for Jaime to discover an interesting detail tha may shed some light on the night that changed both their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for sticking till the end (yes, it is a finished story, the Godess of WIPs has shown mercy with me by letting me finish this!!! *happy dance*) of this tale.
> 
> I thank you for the kudos and comments and for coming along on this very strange journey. 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy the epilog to this tale before it comes to its natural conclusion about as much as I had fun writing it, or perhaps even a bit more. ;) 
> 
> Thanks and much love! ♥♥♥

“You have to be kidding me!”

“Why would I be kidding you?”

“My toaster can also make holy toast! I can’t believe it,” Jaime exclaims, looking at the plate with peanut butter jelly toast slices Brienne hands to him. “I thought he was a costly lost cause.”

“Standard settings normally work best,” Brienne says, rolling her broad shoulders as she walks back into the kitchen to finish the rest of her takeaway noodles.

“Well, see, that is what happens with someone as special as me. I always think that everything about me has to be special,” Jaime tells her.

“You may be much more conventional than you give yourself credit for,” she snorts.

“Well, you consider me special enough to make me toasty dessert,” Jaime chimes, waving the slice of toast roughly in her direction. “Because international restaurants tend to suck at offering proper dessert. I would take that kind of toast over whatever they have there any other day.”

“You know that this is not really considered dessert?” Brienne huffs.

“Dessert is sweet. This is sweet. Hence it is dessert,” Jaime explains, nodding his head slowly, as though he was agreeing with himself.

“So cereal would be dessert for you, too?” Brienne questions after swallowing the last bite of noodles.

He shrugs. “Why not?”

“Because that is _breakfast_ ,” Brienne suggests.

“You are way too focused on food routines, wench. You can have dessert in the morning, you know? There is no food police,” Jaime points out to her. “Which I hope you take as a broad hint that we could still reconsider on taking whipped cream to the bedroom. You know, food police does not check?”

“The whipped cream stays right where it belongs, right next to your fresh bagels,” Brienne answers with a sigh.

“But think of the possibilities!” Jaime chimes. “You know what my tongue can…”

Brienne is quick to interrupt him before he can finish that thought, “Anyway, back on topic, toast is really not that exceptional, so you can stop making such a huge deal about it, just like it may not harm you to think about yourself as less exceptional.”

“Please, I am a sensation. Show me one guy who manages to get the girl after an awkward nightly episode of playing drunken, pain-in-the-ass house guest! Show me one, I dare you!”

“You mean drunken invader,” she corrects him.

“Well, I will admit that I _conquered_ you eventually, even though it was a tough battle,” Jaime tells her, offering an innocent kind of smile Brienne knows by now is not at all intended as such.

Brienne scowls at him, fighting the heat threatening to rise to her cheeks. “Would you stop referring to _that_ in such a manner?”

“Did I ever tell you how much I love it when you can’t seem to say anything related to sex without blushing?” he chimes.

“You may have mentioned it once or twice in a different context,” she sighs, deciding that it’s not just time for distraction, but also for action. Thus, she tosses the takeaway food box into the trashcan before proceeding to the other end of the living room.

“Good. Because it’s the simple truth… what are you doing?” Jaime asks as he sees Brienne make her way over to his unpacked boxes.

“Since you seem unable to unpack those boxes, I think it’s time that I take care of some of it,” Brienne declares, already bending down to pick one up at random.

“What? Nooooo,” Jaime pouts. “We could spend more time in bed or the couch! Or first on the couch and then in bed. Aaaaand we could take the whipped cream with us. There is so much better to do than unpacking boxes on a weekend.”

“We spent enough time _there_ already,” Brienne points out, though she is still rather surprised at how easy it seems now to wake up in an apartment not hers, in Jaime’s apartment to be exact, and spend lazy Saturday mornings loosely entangled.

For that Brienne only ever slipped into those routines a few weeks ago, she finds that her life resonates nicely with the new twists added, because she finds herself in the arms of the man she both wants to hit but also kiss most of the time. 

It’s strange how easy it can be for something to settle in after it had such a rough start, late at night, ringing the doorbell without relent until she opened not just the door, but also herself to the man who was pressing his face to the other side of the portal.

“There is never enough time spent there for that most important matter, wench,” Jaime corrects her.

“I am unpacking boxes now, “ Brienne declares anyway, much to Jaime’s disappointment as he would much rather unpack something entirely else right at this moment.

“I do appreciate it how fast you are at taking over my apartment,” he chimes.

And in fact, Jaime really does. It took him a bit more time to truly see it, but ever since Brienne slept over at his apartment for the first time, Jaime came to see that Brienne takes up space in his apartment fast, thereby transforming it less into a simple place and more into a place to be.

“Well, since you fail at running a proper household on your own, it seems only right to show you how,” Brienne huffs. “You don’t know how to repair cars, you don’t know how to make proper toast… there seems to be a lot for you to catch up on.”

“I like it when you take charge,” Jaime chuckles with a dark kind of grin.

Because while he also likes to take charge in the bed, there is nothing quite like the sight of Brienne towering above him as they engage in their fights under the sheets.

“Boxes,” Brienne says, though he can see the most delicious blush as she is well aware what that meant. And Jaime is well aware that it will take a bit more convincing on his behalf that he loves that sight, that he loves all about her, and that, damn, he finds her sexy. However, he is pretty sure he has a good handle on the situation.

And her uncertainty is a special kind of treat only reserved for himself, just like it is to make her unpack it, leave it aside, and stand up as tall as she can.

“You make me work on my weekend, wench, that isn’t kind. I am a hard-working man. And this should be my off-time at home,” Jaime argues, surprising himself with the apparent ease with which he can say the word now, and mean it, home.

Because that is what it is now, in the shape of holy toast, Brienne munching noodles in the kitchen, or the fact that she seems to take over his household far earlier than they would even consider making it publicly known that they are now dating.

“As you like to attest over and over again, I think you are strong enough to handle that bit of extra effort,” Brienne tells him.

“Fine, I will join you in a few minutes. I just want to finish up my dessert. Deal?” he bargains, to which Brienne nods her head. “Deal. And bring another box when you join me.”

She straightens up to lift up the box, though she doesn’t seem to struggle too much with it despite the weight, tough that is hardly surprising to Jaime as he is not the only one who is strong enough for those kinds of things.

And Seven Hells, does he love that about her, too.

“I assume it’s not the box with the condoms I am supposed to bring?” Jaime asks. “You know that this is my favorite box.”

“You assume right,” she answers.

“You are going to be surprised what you will find in _that_ box, then,” he snickers.

Brienne grimaces at him, stopping in her tracks. “Seriously?”

“Feel free to leave it and join me on the couch instead of finding out what may hide inside it!” Jaime laughs. “Though I mean… you may like what I have in those boxes. I have the best of toys, you know?”

“I think I will dare, if only to throw out what’s not necessary anymore,” Brienne huffs, balancing the box on her thigh before she pushes it back up to start walking again.

“So very daring of you,” he snickers.

“Well, you better hurry up. I will throw away what I think is trash!” Brienne calls out before disappearing into the bedroom to start unpacking.

Jaime chuckles to himself as he puts his plate back down on the couch table, relishing the taste of peanut butter and jelly before he knows he inevitably has to get to work, because Brienne always makes him put in extra-effort for anything.

_But then again, that makes the pay-off ever the more rewarding._

He accidentally pushing over his wallet in the process, which he left on the table earlier when he came back from getting takeaway without proper dessert. Jaime bends down to pick it up, a smile creeping up his lips as he sees Brienne’s business card sticking out. Against all odds, this may have been his lifesaver after all, not just for the sake of stopping him from wandering the streets of King’s Landing late at night, but also because Jaime hasn’t been miserable just once ever since he dared to kiss her a second time, an actual kiss, followed by many more.

Before, coming home promised no good, just a sense of loneliness and not belonging, but ever since Brienne was forced into his space, she didn’t leave it and seemingly has no intention to either, because it appears that Brienne finds herself in that space, their spared space, their private space, the same way he does.

 _Maybe I should get that card framed_ , Jaime thinks to himself, amused at the idea. _After all, it was the first milestone for us to finally admit to ourselves what we couldn’t have before I winded up drunk by her doorsteps._

However, as he keeps pondering the options of framing the business card, Jaime’s frown deepens all of a sudden as something keeps dawning on him, namely that this is _not_ the lifesaver card he used that night to find his way into another home. This is the business card he always kept in his wallet ever since Brienne gave it to him when she first came to the office and hated his guts.

_Which means I now have two? Since when?_

Ever since the life that certainly changed his life in the most unexpected ways, Jaime came to piece things together more and more of the blanks the alcohol left in his recollection of the events, though some blanks remain, including the fact that he never wasted a thought on the business cards again.

Jaime now not only remembers the first kiss that was not nearly on the top of his abilities, as he is eager to prove to Brienne daily, and how he reckons he has to consider himself a truly lucky bastard for having gotten a second shot after that performance. However, he now also comes to remember quite clearly how he walked around the streets aimlessly until he tapped his chest for his belongings, only to discover Brienne’s business card there. And then, in his drunken mind, he decided that it was time to go home to Brienne, though he certainly had no idea that night just what exactly that meant, and how much it means now that he finds himself at home not just at his own place but also Brienne’s. 

Which means that he somehow has two business cards, because Jaime found this one sitting in his wallet when he returned to work on Monday, just where he had forgotten it before Tyrion almost dragged him out of the office, insisting that he can continue being miserable for the rest of the weekend.

And the more Jaime thinks about it, it _did_ strike him as odd already the following day after the night out full of _shot-shot-shot-shot-shots_ how utterly calm Tyrion was during their first phone call following their night full of drinks and embarrassment. His younger brother seemed not at all shocked or concerned when he told him that he was over at Brienne’s place for some reason. And that is what you would normally expect from a guy who just managed to lose his heavily drunk, drugged older brother in a city with lots of cars, lots of traffic, and a fair share of burglars and thieves roaming the streets at night.

_Could it be…?_

Jaime keeps looking at the business card as he takes out his phone, flipping the card between his fingertips a number of times while he swipes with his thumb over the screen to navigate to the familiar number. He lifts the smartphone to his head and waits for someone to pick up on the other end of the line.

“Brother dearest, it’s so nice to hear from you. I was already afraid that you would never come out of your home again safe for work,” Tyrion’s voice blares from the other side.

“I do get groceries on occasion,” Jaime huffs, smirking to himself. While Brienne and he decided not to make too much of a big deal around the office just yet that they are indeed dating, Tyrion obviously knew the moment on Jaime returned to the office on Monday.

_Gods know how he does it, but my little brother has a natural talent to read people. I will have to give him that much. It’s just the fact that he takes advantage of that way too often that makes me wary of that on occasion._

“What can I do for you?” Tyrion asks.

“You can answer me a question,” Jaime says, looking over his shoulder to see Brienne busy in the bedroom without taking any notice of what is going on outside it.

“Sure, fire away,” Tyrion answers.

“Do you, by any chance know, how I come to have two of Brienne’s business cards?” Jaime asks in a casual kind of voice.

“Why would I know about the number of business cards you have?” the younger man scoffs.

“Because I only had one in my wallet, which I left at the office before you dragged me out for some _shot-shot-shot-shot-shots_ , as you might recall, because I already told you by the time we were in the car that I left my wallet there. Yet, there was a second one in my jacket as I wandered the streets after you abandoned me,” Jaime recounts.

“We didn’t _abandon_ you. You just wandered off on your own. Had some you-time. Seven Hells, brother, we took you out for drinks, not to babysit you,” Tyrion tells him.

“The point is that I can’t help but wonder how that card ended up there,” Jaime goes on. “Even more so because I seem to recall, after some time has passed, that we were last together at _The Broken Anvil_ , which is still _quite_ a bit away from Brienne’s apartment. And while I can’t recall whether I actually was in a taxi, I get the feeling that I was, because I barely made it up the stairs to Brienne’s apartment that night. And since I had no money on me, it leads me to the assumption that _someone_ was there with me in the taxi and dropped me off not too far away from where Brienne lives. What do you say to that theory, brother dearest?”

“You are asking me questions about a time that I still only remember through a fog consisting of ale, beer, wine, and many, many shots,” Tyrion huffs. “You might have more luck asking the owner of _The Broken Anvil_ what color my tie had that night.”

“Yeah, right. And it was Lannister red, as always, by the way. So just to get this straight: Your theory is that I just accidentally stumbled all the way to Brienne’s apartment in my state in the middle of the night, do I have that right?” Jaime goes on to question. “I mean, I am the slow learner and you are the smart one, so you tell me, does that sound logical to you?”

“Stranger things have happened, I’d assume.”

“Well, you can count yourself lucky that you didn’t see the strange things I was up to that night,” Jaime huffs.

Tyrion grunts. “Spare me with the details.”

“You are the one to talk,” the older brother snorts. “Or do I have to remind you of what I had to walk into at the office?”

“I am a small man. Sitting on the table is far less straining for the lady in that position. I was just being considerate,” Tyrion points out to him.

“ _Anyway_ … so you don’t come to know how I have two business cards now?” Jaime asks again.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Tyrion declares with a grin.

“Right,” Jaime chuckles, but then adds with much more sincerity. “But thank you.”

Because even if his theory is right after all, and Jaime dares to think that it’s a pretty solid one at this point, he is indeed thankful for that push. Because it got him into the arms of the woman who manages to make him feel at home by making herself at home, the woman who shares a lot of things with him without agreeing on every issue with him, always up for a fight, but also fragile to the touch.

And Jaime will admit, if being tricked by his little brother is what it takes to get there, he would gladly suffer through the massive hangover he had for the rest of the weekend, so long it brought him right to where he is right now, with Brienne finally getting rid of the baggage of the past, of not daring to move in, not thinking of this place as a home, by opening those boxes, unpacking them, to make more space for them and only them.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I just gave my dearest older brother a push to go out and get some drinks. The rest is history,” Tyrion huffs.

“Well, I will see you on Monday, then,” Jaime chuckles, before adding quickly, “Oh, and just by the way?”

“Yes?”

“If I were you… I would not make mention to that to Brienne,” Jaime warns him.

“I mean, I had no part in it, but I am just wondering why?” Tyrion asks, _suspiciously_ cautious while at it.

“Because she would likely rip you a new one, if you had pulled such a stunt on her just to play wingman for your brother in a very, very odd way,” Jaime says coolly. “And I cannot recommend that.”

“Well, thankfully I had no part in it,” Tyrion laughs hurriedly.

“ _Right_. Well, I have boxes to unpack.”

“Boxes? So you finally get rid of hose eyesores?”

“Brienne forces me into it on the weekend, can you imagine?” Jaime laughs.

“So you feel at home at last?” Tyrion asks in a gentle kind of voice, well aware of the implication of that word now easily slipping from Jaime’s lips.

“Seems like it,” the older brother agrees.

Yes, he feels at him.

He is at home.

“Good. Took you long enough. Bye.”

“Bye.”

…

Tyrion shakes his head as he stuffs the phone away.

“So pretty boy finally used his brain for once?” Bronn asks, sprawled across Tyrion’s couch in a very odd angle. They definitely shouldn’t have spent that much time at the inns before going for the fun bits at the brothels, as they basically just fell asleep there, which is not at all worth the bargain of what they paid for the special services.

“He starts to piece things together,” Tyrion affirms as he hops on the couch as well.

“You know you owe me big time for this?” Bronn asks, leaning his head back.

“What? It was weekend, you got free drinks, and I paid for your sweet times over at Baelish’s brothel. I think it was a pretty decent deal for you,” Tyrion huffs.

“Well, that was the _least_ you could do after you made me suffer through _hours_ of pretty boy whining about how he doesn’t feel home at his fancy apartment and how he has no friends other than the tall, blonde woman who has, to quote, ‘legs that just go on for miles’ and ‘has such big blue eyes you want to get lost in.’ I don’t get paid for that kind of nonsense,” Bronn snorts, making his discontent no secret.

“I owed my brother a favor for the many times he played wingman for me and didn’t snitch on me for my sweet times on not just my office desk, but also father’s,” Tyrion chuckles softly.

“And what do _I_ owe him, care to remind me?” the dark-haired man wants to know.

Tyrion shrugs his shoulders. “You get paid, more than what your work is worth.”

Bronn really shouldn’t think too highly of himself. All he had to do was to play Tyrion’s executing arm as his is naturally rather short.

“Hells, for that night, you barely covered the minimum. I had to haul the guy almost all the way to that alley because pretty boy was just that wasted,” Bronn grunts disapprovingly. “And anyway, for that you think it was a nice gesture, you _are_ aware that he may just have well fallen over with his drunk ass and landed in a roadside ditch? Y’know, not that I care, but he’s _your_ brother, so.”

“I put Brienne’s business card in his pocket as we grabbed our coats to head out of the office for some drinks. It was only a matter of time until my dear brother would find it after we let him out by the alley. And even if not, it’s not like we were miles away. The brothel is just two blocks away,” Tyrion argues.

He thought this through rather carefully. After all, it took Tyrion all of his persuasion skills already to get his brother to join. And while Jaime explained that the pills he swallowed were definitely something Tyrion did not incorporate into his calculation, his plan was solid enough to carry out till the end.

Though Tyrion will admit that a broken down car and not knowing that his brother had taken pills not mixing well with alcohol were variables he did not see coming in any way. Yet, reckoning that he will not have to repeat that ever again as Jaime is now finally with the woman he has hinted at liking without ever realizing it, the oblivious fool he can be more often than not, Tyrion dares to mark this off as a major success on his behalf.

“Well, for what it’s worth, it will at least put an end to their _will-they-won’t-they_ looking at each other around the office like some damned lovesick teenagers who are on the verge of moaning their names to each other, even though it’s clear as day that they want to fook right in the office since day one,” Bronn huffs, shaking his head.

“My brother is wonderfully oblivious at times,” Tyrion chuckles. “Oftentimes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Though I _do_ hope that Brienne never finds out about what we had to do with it. Jaime made a good point right there when I spoke to him on the phone just now. I don’t want to know what my brother did in his drunken stupor, and that woman can very well destroy someone with her bare fists, especially a man my size and physique,” Tyrion ponders. “I mean, I still remember quite vividly how she knocked that red-haired dude to the ground who came from Winterfell and had no idea how to properly behave himself.”

“Well, I won’t protect you when she comes after you, that’s for sure,” Bronn declares, easing back down on the couch.

“It’s always good to know that I can rely on my friends,” Tyrion huffs, shaking his head.

“You can always rely on my lack of reliance.”

“That is almost motivational,” Tyrion chuckles. “So, we stick to our story in front of Brienne.”

“You stick to the story, I keep the Seven Hells out of their affairs from now on. Trust me in this, just let them fook it all out, like the rabbits, then they won’t ever start to question it again. The world’s all about cocks in the end, I told you often enough,” Bronn says. “So long they have each other to fight with both at the office and under the sheets, I think we will be safe.”

“I would drink to that if I had anything alcoholic around right now,” Tyrion laughs.

Bronn sighs. “You are shit for a host, you know?”

“How much do I have to pay you so that you get us some wine?” Tyrion asks, tilting his head to the sight.

“I am not moving anywhere,” the dark-haired man grunts. “You are rich, you can hire people to do that for you.”

“Fine, then hire someone in my name.”

“As you said yourself, I am shitty at my job, so why would I start being good at it now?”

“Because you are my friend?”

“I am not. I am definitely not.”

“Aw, you love me.”

“I love my house on the country side that you will buy for me once my contract expires, and that is the end of it.”

“It’s as you say, I can always rely on your lack of reliance. It’s so good to know that some things don’t ever change… while others do after just one shove in the right direction.”

…

Brienne still digs her way through the box, unable to smirk to herself at how oddly natural that already feels. It’s been only a few weeks since Jaime kissed her door and begged her to let him inside after he got lost in drunkenness, and yet, here she is, unpacking Jaime’s boxes, somehow helping him finally move in.

And in that way, Brienne dares to think that she is moving in as well, that this is a first step to make it her new kind of normalcy and order, too. After all, she now has the power to take control over the matter rather than just being thrown into the flux of uncertainty that was the night Jaime kissed her goodnight only to remember it fractionally ever since.

This is her new reality now, and if she wants to stay comfortable within, Brienne has to make sure that she gets in some order, because Jaime just loves to disrupt it with his chaos.

Though she will admit, if not out loud, that there is something liberating about chaos indeed, of just letting go, letting herself fall into those moments of opening the door, only for Jaime to almost dive in and pull her in for a passionate kiss.

Because that is her new routine, too, even though Brienne cannot plan for it, cannot anticipate it, cannot control it.

But that is fine, because she trusts Jaime.

_It’s just that simple at times._

The sound of shuffling feet calls her attention over to the door where Jaime makes his way inside, though Brienne can only see his legs as the big box covers the rest of his upper body.

“As I said, I am very much against working on the weekend,” Jaime announces as he comes inside, unceremoniously dropping the box next to the other.

“Duly noted,” Brienne snorts.

“So? Found anything interesting?” Jaime asks, motioning closer to her.

“After your announcement, I feared for the worst, but it’s just clubber, pretty much,” Brienne answers, rolling her shoulders as she looks back down at what she already sorted out and started to put away.

“ _Clubber_?” Jaime cries out in feigned exasperation. “Those are precious items, wench!”

“I found a broken tennis racquet in there,” Brienne points out drily.

“With which I won the summer camp’s tennis tournament at the tender age of eight. I considered pursuing a tennis career for quite some time, but then I discovered that I can do so much more as a businessman,” Jaime tells her, holding his chin up high for emphasis.

Brienne frowns at him. “And how did you break it?”

He shrugs. “Got too enthusiastic over my victory and smashed the thing on the ground.”

“That sounds awfully much like you,” Brienne chuckles softly. “Always hot-headed.”

“I call it charmingly enthusiastic.”

“You can call it however you want,” Brienne snorts. “It’s still hot-headedness in my book.”

“So, I was wondering…,” Jaime goes on, his voice trailing off, but Brienne cuts him off, “Not the whipped cream.”

“No, I mean, yes, if you finally gave in, but until I got you there, I thought about how we still have to get some of your boxes here,” Jaime tells her, now more sincerely than before.

“I don’t have any boxes.”

“But you can pack them. And hey, we don’t even have to waste those ones. We can unpack those, pack your stuff in, and move it here.”

“I think we will start out slow,” Brienne argues, digging through the box. “I already have some items here. Toothbrush. Spare clothes.”

“I really appreciate the presence of your spare panties, I will admit,” he snickers. “But anyway, why wait?”

“We aren’t even officially dating yet and you already want to jump three steps ahead.”

“Why not? There is no food police just like there is no home police. We can do whatever we want,” Jaime argues.

Because he could really get used to having Brienne around not just during the weekend and some of the weeknights. In fact, Jaime finds himself strangely excited at the mere thought of waking up to what he just opened his eyes to this morning, Brienne’s arm loosely draped around him, her hair a mess after he made it such during their nightly activities, and perfectly bare safe for the blanket both slept under.

“One step after the other,” she tells him.

“We seem to work well skipping ahead. Or do I have to remind you how fast we got past our awkwardness after I invaded your home?” Jaime argues.

“How about we unpack the boxes first and then we talk about what to put in them, yes?” Brienne argues, shaking her head.

Though she will admit that there is something oddly thrilling to the idea, to the fact that Jaime genuinely wants her so much, wants her to be around, wants her to be with him, as though he can’t get enough of her. Brienne never quite had that before, and now that she found it with Jaime, she comes to realize that there is a particular drive in her to keep it, keep it at all costs, as often as she can.

Brienne already wants to add something about another odd item in the box, when she finds herself being grabbed by the midsection to pull her up into a standing position. She can feel heat rise from the tips of her toes to the top of her hairline as she can feel Jaime press against her, transmitting with a single gesture, a single touch that all of that is true, that he wants her, wants no one and nothing but her.

And that makes her feel at home in a way Brienne has yet to get used to, though she is fairly certain that Jaime will see to that.

“Or… we could quickly unpack something else that is craving attention now,” Jaime says in a dark voice as he presses himself against her with a bit more urgency, pressing a kiss to the nape of her long, thick neck in all the ways that have Brienne, against the odds of her strength, go weak very, very fast.

“What of finally moving in so that you feel at home?”

“So long you are right here with me, wench, I don’t care about any of those boxes,” Jaime mutters, pulling her around so that they face one another. “With you, I am home anywhere.”

He cups her chin to guide her lips to his for a passionate, almost feverish kiss, because this is the best of homes, the only one that matters, and Jaime could get lost within from this day forth for the rest of his days.

Jaime just pulls her with him to land on the bed, deciding that the boxes can very well wait because their time is now, this is their home, and he wants to explore ever bit of it, every day anew.

However, as they sink down on the pillows, he lets out a shout. “Fuck, what was that!?”

“The tennis racquet,” Brienne answers quickly, unable to hold back a small, sweet kind of laughter that escapes her whenever she pays no attention to hiding away, something that Jaime loves to make sure of because those are about just as rewarding as the sight of her giving herself over to him.

“You know you now have to kiss my back to make it better?” Jaime groans, rubbing his back.

“How about we get at least those things out of bed before we get to that?” she suggests, pointing at the items she spread out on the bed to sort them out, which Jaime completely forgot about in the heat of the moment.

“You know… I think I will have to agree to that,” Jaime sighs. “But after that... it’s homecoming for me, yes?”

“Homecoming, _really_?” she scoffs.

“It’s as I said, you are my home, so being right there with you is all that I need. And that is something I already knew when I was dead drunk, wandering the streets of King’s Landing. I am home in Wench Land.”

“You didn’t seriously just say that, did you?”

“I said it and I mean it. Always.”

 _The End_


End file.
